Thursday, December 24, 2015
Sermon for the Vigil of the Nativity
Year C ~ December 24, 2015
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Holy Trinity & St. Anskar
She brought forth her
firstborn Son
… and laid Him in a manger…
+In the Name of God,
the Holy and Undivided Trinity
Jesus said
that we have to become like little children to enter the Kingdom. This was in the context of the disciples’ competing
with one another, jostling for position. The child in this example was a figure
of humility, and the observation is so easily made into sentimental claptrap
that it is tempting to ignore it. Still, maybe there is something exemplary about
childlike consciousness, in addition to humility.
Children like animals. They seem naturally drawn to them.
Could this be significant? Is it a vestige of some kind of species memory? The
Ada-mic solidarity with all creation? Innocent of sinful separation from our
fellow-creatures? Or does it have to do
with the confluence of consciousness we considered last Sunday? Are children
somehow more open to shared consciousness with animals? Could that possibly be
part of what it means to become “as a little child?”
Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall
not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Let us
notice, however, the difference
between being child-like and being
child-ish, and in due terror of nauseating sentimentality, and the risk of trivializing
Christmas, let us consider the advice of St. Francis of Assisi to preachers on
Christmas Eve: just shut up and listen to the Baby Jesus crying in His manger. And
St. Francis introduced the cult of the Nativity to Italy 800 years ago, and
popularized the manger scene.
The
manger. Let’s think about that. All the Gospel says is that our Lady wrapped Him in swaddling clothes and laid
Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. The Gospel doesn’t
tell us where this manger was – stable, shed or cave – it hardly matters. It is
enough for us to know that wherever it was, it was the place where animals were
kept.
Much is conventionally made about the inhospitality of the wicked
world, typified by the booked-up Bethlehem hotel. But as far as we can tell,
such accommodation would not have been a suitable place to give birth: no private
rooms, just an open floor, crowded with unsavory characters and hopelessly
unsanitary. The solitude of the barn would have been preferable. Later on, the
One born there would indeed associate, with the likes of the people in the inn,
but He was born not among them but out behind, among animals. Animals – more humble
even than the shepherds or little children. So to be born among them was ultimate
humility. Even so, the newborn Godman was probably better off there than in the
inn.
Joseph was there, and of course His All-Holy Mother, but no
one else – except the animals. They are not even mentioned; we can only infer
their presence from the word, manger
– their feeding trough. But let us not dismiss these so-called “subhuman”
creatures as insignificant details in the scene, beings of no importance, without
consciousness. We simply do not know, what they know. We are related to them –
we are certainly closer to them than we are to God – the Infinite Word Who lies in their manger.
Some of them are very close indeed. There is an old display called “Foster
mothers of the Human Race,” which identifies the main breeds of dairy cows at the State
Fair. The animals assisted th4e Holy Family.
One way the barn was preferable to the inn was the warmth of
their body-heat. Following St. Francis – who addressed animals as brothers and
sisters – I like to think that the cows
and horses and oxen and donkeys had some inkling of the importance of what was
happening – before humans knew, other than Mary and Joseph. Could they sense
that this New Human was for them, too? Did they rejoice in their own way, and
move a little closer to shelter Him, to protect the New Adam?
Why not? Despite the risks of sentimentality, the notion is
really not so childish, is it? Solidarity with the rest of creation, the
recognition of the independent dignity and value of all creatures, the intuition
that salvation extends to non-human creatures, may be child-like, but it is not
childish, and without it we cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom of
Him Who, as on this Most Holy Night, lies in a manger, warmed by animals, because
– providentially perhaps – there is no
room for Him in the inn.
Alleluia!
Christ s Born!
Come Let us Adore
Him!
