Bishop Glen John Provost
Bishop of Lake Charles
Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Advent
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception
"This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about." Matthew 1:18
"Only the Jesus of the witnesses is the real Jesus." So wrote Pope Benedict XVI in his book God Is Near Us. The witnesses of the Gospel bear testimony to what they knew and experienced, saw and touched. In the moving words of the First Letter of St. John, "What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we looked upon and touched with out hands concerns the Word of life - for the life was made visible" (I John 1:1). Who better to teach us what our attitude should be on this last Sunday of Advent than the witnesses.
St. Joseph is the first. Like his namesake in the Old Testament, he is a dreamer. Whom did he tell about these dreams? When he was prepared to marry a pure virgin, he found her to be with child. He realized the consequences of this. Mary would suffer the penalties of the Mosaic Law. So he decided to divorce her quietly, but an angel comes to him in a dream. The angel says, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home. For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her" (Matthew 1:20). Joseph never speaks a word. He is a silent witness. Like many good fathers, he is a doer. He goes to Bethlehem, he leads to Egypt, he returns to Nazareth, and having accomplished his mission, he disappears from the Gospels, leaving us an example of a man who takes his responsibilities seriously. Perhaps his silent witness teaches us that Christmas is a quiet feast.
And Mary, what of Mary? The Jews knew their Scriptures very well. The passage from Isaiah, that is our first reading, appears too often in the writings of the early Christians, beginning with St. Matthew himself, for it not to have been perhaps on Mary¹s mind. A sign will be given. "The virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel" (Isaiah 7:14). When I think of Mary as a witness to Jesus, I think of her amazement at the message of Gabriel in the Gospel of St. Luke. I ponder her joy when she visited her cousin Elizabeth and sang, "My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord" (Luke 1:46). Her witness to her Son teaches us that Christmas is a joyful feast.
One of my favorite witnesses is the group of shepherds. There they were tending their sheep, minding their own business. The heavens open. An angel appears and says, "I proclaim to you good news of great joy" (Luke 1:10). I would like to think that such a message was sung. We do that in our Catholic liturgy, after all. "Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests" (Luke 1:14). Catholics have repeated those words for centuries to recall shepherds being awakened to joy. The Shepherd of Souls is revealed to the shepherds of sheep, and we are never the same again. The shepherds tell me that Christmas has a message to change our lives.
There is another group of witnesses who remain unnamed in the Gospels, but they were no doubt present. At least, I would like to think that they were witnesses. Jesus was laid in a manger. A manger is where fodder is kept to feed cattle and donkeys. The animals looked on, God¹s creatures, cows and beasts of burden. They warmed the Word of God made flesh with their breath. I recall the ancient French carol, "Entre le boeuf et ane gris, dort, dort, dort le petit fils." "Amongst the cows and the grey donkey, sleeps, sleeps, sleeps the little son." So often forgotten, so often neglected, the animals witness to the humility of Christmas.
"Only the Jesus of the witnesses is the real Jesus." The last witnesses are the ones we will meet towards the end of the Christmas season, the Magi. "The three kings" we call them. They are Gentiles, non-Jews. Informed by their readings, guided by a star, they journey on their way and open their coffers to produce gifts of priceless worth. The remarkable thing is that their gifts, gold, frankincense and myrrh, reveal who Jesus is - a king, a God, and the redeeming death of a priest. They are kings of mystery. We do not know where they came from, and we do not know where they return. From them we learn that Christmas is a gift.
If the witnesses reveal the true Jesus, then the quiet of Joseph, the joy of Mary, the humility of a manger, and the gifts of the Magi part the heavens and proclaim a Word of God made flesh to change our lives. In the activity and noise of last minute shopping and the confusion of preparations for company, let us not miss what the witnesses tell us.