Being back, even for this short bit, has shown us how universal our human needs are. Last week Maria had the opportunity to sit and visit with a friend who have been struggling with illness for over a year. We have been able to step into the journey with family friends as they navigate the beautiful and heart-wrenching adoption process with all its twists and turns and ups and downs. Yesterday Josh attended a funeral mass for a Canisius High School senior and the son of St. Gregory the Great parish family who tragically passed away last weekend. It doesn't matter if you are in Mexico or New York or the other side of the world, we experience the same anxiety, loss, doubts, grief, and loneliness. There is poverty all around the world... only occasionally does it come as a result of a lack of income and physical hunger. So often the poverty is spiritual and emotional. It is a poverty of the heart and of the soul, not the wallet. It is the same stories; the difference is just how comfortable your chair is.
Here we hear the cry, "O come... O come.... Emmanuel... that mourns in lonely exile here." It is the cry of the broken human heart longing to find comfort and solace. It is the groaning of a world in need of love and a savior. It is the yearning to know that we are not alone in this mess.
It is from this poverty of anxiety and loneliness that God hears our cries. Just as in the days of old, during the time of the Exodus, God responds. "And from their bondage their cry for help went up to God. God heard their moaning and God was mindful of his covenant... God saw his people, and God knew..." The story of Israel, our older brothers in the faith, is our story too. We share the same history and the same scriptures. This same story is shared with whole world, because it is a human story. God has heard our cries, and he knows in a deep and experiential way. This is Jesus, who wept at the death of his friend Lazarus, who had compassion over the crowds, who looked at the leper and the woman with a hemorrhage and was moved.
It is as the poor, in the solidarity with the poor, that God comes into the world. This is Jesus, who did not come down to live in a palace or as a emperor, but came as a child, to a poor family, in a poor manager. He came into our mess. His arrival was not made know to Caesar or Herod, but to shepherds by the angelic words, "Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people." It the shepherds that first heard the good news for all people. How do we know that the Messiah and Lord is for all people? "And this will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger." (Luke 2)
And finally it is in the poor that Christ was found. This is the Christ-child, who was not born in the glorious Jerusalem, but forgotten Bethlehem. The chief priests and scribes instructed the magi that the newly born king was to be found in Bethlehem. "And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; since from you shall come a ruler, who is to shepherd my people Israel." (Matthew 2:6) For as Jesus quoted Psalm 118, "The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; by the Lord has this been done, and it is wonderful in our eyes."
During this Christmas season, where is Jesus coming into the mess in your life? Where is his manger in your heart? From where have you been calling out and inviting him in? And... Where are the poor in your life with whom the Christ-child might be found? To whom you may be called to share your love and gifts?
May the Lord pour forth his love and grace upon you during this Christmas season. May you encounter him in the stables and managers of your hearts and lives.
