Holy Spirit Catholic Church
Homilies
Archive
Christmas
December 24-25, 2007
Sister Mary Coleman was a Maryknoll nun in the Philippines during World War II. She spent a good part of the war in a Japanese internment camp. After the war she wrote:
"The Japanese guards were kind to us. We had quite a lot of freedom within the camp. We even had a room set aside for prayer.
One of the Filipinos carved a fine wooden crucifix for the room and put it on the wall. The crucifix became a focus for our prayer. One of the guards often observed us, careful not to disturb us. The Japanese have a great appreciation for meditation and contemplation. Most, however, know nothing of the story of Jesus.
When Christmas came, some Filipinos carved a whole manger set for our prayer room, and we put it out quite early in Advent. Through the Christmas season, we often came to pray before the manger. As we did, the guard who watched us pray before the crucifix, observed us even more closely.
Once, as some of us were leaving the room, he pointed to Jesus in the manger and then to Jesus on the cross, and asked, "The same one?" I answered softly, "Yes, the same one." Looking down at the manger and then up to the crucifix, he said, "I am sorry."
This is a beautiful Christmas story. And it is especially appropriate for our Christmas liturgy.
First, it's appropriate because of its setting. It takes place in a prison camp room, bare except for the crib and the cross.
The cross was made from pieces of old wood, which were probably found in some obscure corner of the camp. Then somebody spent hours carving out the body of Jesus and attaching it lovingly to the cross.
The crib was also made from small pieces of scrap wood found lying around the camp. Again, someone spent hours carving the images of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
That bare prayer room in the prison camp reminds us of the bare stable in which Jesus was born in Bethlehem. That bare, austere setting helps us to focus our attention on what Christmas is all about. It’s about the incredible mystery of God taking flesh and coming to live among us...of God becoming one of us to teach us how much he loves us...of God living among us to teach us how to love one another as he loves us!
And this brings us to the second reason why the story is especially appropriate for our Christmas liturgy. The crib and the cross, standing side-by-side in the prayer room, help us to focus our attention on something we tend to forget. And that is the intimate connection between the crib and the cross. They cannot be separated!
The crib is the first step in the lifelong journey that will culminate on the cross. The same Jesus who begins life lying in a wooden crib will end life hanging on a wooden cross.
Jesus is God's Christmas gift to the human race, to show us how much he loves us. St. Augustine said of this gift: "What greater gift could God have given us than to take flesh and become a son of man that we might become a son of God?"
The third reason why the story of the Japanese guard and the camp prisoners is appropriate for our Christmas liturgy is this: It suggests an appropriate Christmas gift that we might give God in return for the great gift of his Son to us.
Before Christmas is over, we might retire to some quiet place and take three minutes to do what the Japanese guard did. During the first minute, we gaze at the body of the infant Jesus lying in the manger, with Mary kneeling silently at his side. During the second minute, we gaze at the body of the suffering Jesus hanging on the cross, with Mary standing silently beneath it. During the third minute we ask Mary the same question that the Japanese guard asked the prisoners.
After studying the infant Jesus in the crib and then at the suffering Jesus on the cross, we will say, "The same one?" Then Mary will say to us, "Yes, the same one." And we will say to Mary what the guard said to Sister Coleman: "I am sorry." Mary will say back to us, "Don't be sad! Be joyful!"
For we all know that Jesus has called us, from all eternity, to be for our world what he was for his world. He has called us to tell the Good News of the crib and the cross to all the world. It is the Good News that God loved us so much he gave his only Son to be our Savior.
It is this God News that God wants us to take from this church and proclaim to our world by our faith and trust, by our witness and example, by our prayerfulness and worship.