12.24.2020 Homily

This section of the gospel concludes with the words, “once they saw they understood.” What was it that they understood? The angel said about this Messiah, this Lord, "This will be a sign to you. You will find the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.”

The sign, the sign that is given to them, is that humility of God, which has taken in extreme, and the love by which he assumes our frailty, our suffering, our anxieties, our desires, our limitations, our smallness. To see Jesus is to accept Him on His own terms. Jesus comes in a very normal setting. Jesus made Himself small in order to better meet us. For God is in love with what is small. Now, once the shepherds drew near and saw Jesus and saw the sign, saw the humility, then they understood. They understood that the Savior, the Messiah, the Lord is found in a fragile child.

Jesus calls us to see His face in the face of fragile children. We see the face of Jesus in the faces of Syrian children marked by war. We see Jesus in the children of Iraq and the children of Lebanon and Yemen. We see Jesus in the faces of the children of unemployed parents who struggle to feed them and to shelter them. We see Jesus in the faces of children who from very young age are forced to work or to enroll as soldiers. We see Jesus in the faces of children who have had to flee their home and travel in inhumane conditions.

We see Jesus in children targeted for human traffickers. We see Jesus in children forced to emigrate and to risk their lives. We see Jesus in the faces of exiled children separated from parents and caged on our Southern border. Jesus knows the pain of not being welcomed and He knows how hard it is not to have a place to lay your head.

The shepherds came to understand that their Messiah, their Lord makes His home among the small, among the fragile, among those who are lost. This Christmas season we must open our hearts and pray: "Lord, give me the grace of mercy in the most difficult of circumstances, give me the grace of closeness to those who are small--to the least. Help me to accept You on your own terms. You are found with those who are small and with those who are fragile.

When we go to seek Him, we seek Him among those who are fragile. But maybe it's not you and I who seek Him. Maybe when we stand with those who are fragile, He comes and finds us.