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This year I feel like the college student who was unprepared for his final exam. Seeing the test in front of him, his mind went blank. Since it was right before Christmas break, he wrote on his paper: “Only God knows the answers to these questions. Merry Christmas!” When the college professor graded the test, he added this note: “God gets a hundred. You get a zero. Happy New Year!” I hope my homily does better than that, but whatever happens, give God a hundred. Despite everything we’ve endured in this strange and difficult year, God has been good to us. Christmas is proof that He never stops giving!
A number of years ago, a group of pastors came up with a creative Christmas gift. They collected $10,000 and used it to pay outstanding tickets. They set up a table outside the City Hall of their town and told people to bring their unpaid tickets. Believe it or not, it was a college student who had the biggest number – 84 - which the pastors covered. A woman brought in fourteen tickets and timidly asked one of the pastors if they could pay half. He responded, “No, we are going to pay them all, in full – because God’s grace is amazing.”
Now, why am I telling you this story? It’s not so you will bring me your unpaid tickets. I am not one of those nice pastors! Still, it is a modern-day parable about God’s grace; undeserved, free, extravagantly generous and liberating. I think a lot about God’s generous mercy this time of year when I am hearing confessions. How people come in nervous, ashamed, burdened and sad. Yet they leave refreshed, free, and hopeful! How beautiful is God’s love and forgiveness! The same is true when I stop and think about my life and ministry as a priest with you. How generous God has been in my life! How many undeserved blessings I have been given in the form of treats, beautiful cards with heartfelt encouragement, monetary gifts and so many meaningful friendships. All while doing work that fulfills me and brings meaning to my life. It’s so much more than I deserve! I hope as you reflect on your life and on this year, despite the obvious hardships and setbacks, you feel something similar.
This humble gratitude for the most profound gifts is at the heart of what we celebrate on Christmas. God became man to reveal to us the depths of his love. It is his perfect and saving gift to the human race: undeserved, perfect, and free!
Let me tell you about a man who received a beautiful gift from God, a man who then wound up sharing it with the entire world. His beginnings were unpromising, to say the least. His father abandoned him before he was born, and his mother barely made ends meet by knitting sweaters, caps and socks. As a young man, he discerned a call to the priesthood, entered the seminary and became a priest in Salzburg, Austria in 1815. The bishop assigned Fr. Mohr to a mountain parish. One quiet evening the young priest sat down and composed a brief poem. He kept the verses to himself for two years. Then, shortly before Christmas, he showed it to a friend named Franz Guber. Franz provided a melody. We all know it well. Its opening words are: Silent Night! Holy Night!
At the Midnight Mass in 1818, Fr. Mohr’s small parish heard the hymn for the first time. The congregation loved it and each Christmas they looked forward to singing the carol which their pastor had composed. About fifteen years later, some traveling troubadours heard the hymn at a Christmas Mass. They picked it up and performed it at a concert in Leipzig. It spread quickly and was sung for the first time in America in 1839.
Soon it was translated into English, Spanish and many other languages. Fr. Mohr’s poem became the most popular Christmas hymn of all time.
Fr. Mohr lived another thirty years after writing his poem. In spite of the hymn’s popularity, the composer died penniless. He had spent his earnings as a parish priest to care for the elderly. Fr. Mohr was buried in the cemetery of the parish where he had served as pastor for ten years.
If you consider the number of times Silent Night has been printed and recorded, the royalties would amount to millions, perhaps billions, of dollars. Yet, for his poem, Joseph Mohr gained neither money nor fame. It was not until after his death that the world even recognized its author. Fr. Mohr had received his poem as gift – it had come to him in an evening of quiet inspiration. What he received, he gave as a gift, first to his parishioners, then to children and adults throughout the world.
The story of the hymn “Silent Night” is appropriate for Christmas. The true greatness of Jesus was not understood from the beginning. He came among us with a modesty that did not reveal the immensity of his gift. Even 2000 years later, many people still do not know or accept the treasure he wishes to share so generously.
Before we can appreciate the gift of the Christ Child, we might ask ourselves what any gift means. It is a great joy to receive a present and an ever greater joy to be able to give one. It takes a certain childlike wonder and simple gratitude to really get the point. Behind every meaningful gift, is the expression of love and sacrifice.
Think of everything we have received from the hand of God, starting with the gift of life. Life is the greatest gift of all. None of us created our own self or thought up our own existence. Everything we enjoy depends on the initial gift of life. Yet there is something even greater God wants to give. That is what we celebrate tonight. That God was not content to simply brings us into existence, he also desired to save us from sin and darkness and help us return to him. He wanted to lead as one of us and so accepted our human flesh with all its limitations and humiliations. This is truest form of love and sacrifice! The God of everything becomes nothing to love and save us!
In his wisdom, God has put his image within us. We experience life as Jesus did, a combination of longings and limitations, desiring to give, be known, and love. We each have an inner self we wish to reveal completely to someone who can understand and embrace us. That perfect someone does exist and we celebrate his birth today. Jesus is his name and He is the supreme gift of the Father, the fulfillment of desire in every human heart.
Think back to Fr. Mohr. A young man, who never knew his own father, experienced the love and warmth of Almighty God. Through Divine Grace, he expressed that gift in a poem now sung around the world. What are the gifts we have received from God this year? Have we acknowledged them and given thanks? Have we done our best to imitate the Christ-Child and become a gift to others? God is good! God never stops giving! Come let us adore Him!!
