Every morning here at Immaculate Conception Seminary we chant the Canticle of Zechariah, which is also the Gospel Reading for Christmas Eve morning. Coming just a verse before the narration of Jesus’ birth, it gives expression to the yearning of the human heart for freedom, and the fulfillment of that desire, in the face of “darkness and the shadow of death” (Luke 1:79), with the advent of our Savior, Jesus the Christ. On the threshold of Christmas, our hope is concentrated and palpable.
May we be able to realize on the level of our hearts this hope in Jesus given to us by the Holy Spirit. “Hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Romans 5:5), as Father John Russell, O.Carm., who was on the Immaculate Conception Seminary faculty from 1978 to 2000 and again from 2005 to 2010, would remind us. May we taste this expectation in the Christmas celebration that begins tonight, overflows in full force tomorrow, continues in intensity through the Octave, and lasts through the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord (Sunday, January 12).
We find Christmas in the liturgical celebration and in the liturgy lived. If I may wax rather personal, last year I was deprived of the former, spending the entire Christmas season in the hospital in connection with open heart mitral valve repair. Only praying the Liturgy of the Hours in my hospital room kept me in the liturgical rhythm of Christmas. Although my appreciation for the Hours deepened, I really anticipate celebrating the Eucharist daily during the Christmastide immediately before us.
That said, I was not denied the experience of Christmas last year: I found it in the love I received through the health care personnel who served me. Christ incarnate was most evident in the great kindness and competence of the nurses, patient care associates, medical residents and related professionals with whom I dwelt in those days. I recognized also the great dedication of my surgeon and others who developed their incredible competence through long hours of study and clinical practice; that, too, is love. When the Lord “made His dwelling among us” (John 1:14), He desired not only to be present in the earthly life of Jesus of Nazareth, but through the Lord Jesus’ Pascal Mystery, in the power of the Holy Spirit animating the Body of Christ, the Church, that is, you and me. We meet Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, in our sister and in our brother; may we receive Him! Called to bring Jesus to our brothers and sisters, we rejoice in doing so, experiencing Christmas perhaps as we have never known it before.
