December 25, 2012 Christmas Midnight Mass - Cycle C Fr. Larry Richards Merry Christmas. Bethlehem, the House of Bread, where the Bread of Life would become from. When I was on sabbatical of course that is one of the places I got to be, in Bethlehem. And it was the most touching place for me because Bethlehem of course, it’s not right in the city of Israel, I mean it’s in Palestine now so you have to go through. It is very crowded when you get over there. And over in Bethlehem there is the place where Jesus was born. And there are also the shepherd’s fields where there is another church. But the place He was born is quite interesting because to walk in to the church; the door is only about four feet high. Maybe it is lower than that. And so you have to humble yourself to go into the church, on purpose. It was done on purpose. But once you go down and you go down to this like basement and it’s packed. Thousands of people are going through trying to see the place where Jesus was born. And there were twenty or thirty of us priests there and so they snuck us in the other way but still when you go down there, there were thousands of people literally going through trying to touch. Everybody kisses the place where He was born. And so I did that of course and I took some icons and different things, I had them placed right there, where the place Christ was born. But then in this very small, small room, I went to the corner and I just sat there. All of these people going through. I just sat there and I prayed and I was still and I said the Rosary. And of course I meditated on the Joyful Mysteries. But for years I have spent time meditating on those Joyful Mysteries and thinking about being there with Mary. Being in the place where Jesus was born. But here it hit me more than it ever hit me before because as I have meditated on it and I have always sit there and you know, think about being there and smelling all of this stuff around me and Mary looking and saying, “Here do you want to hold Him?” But this is where it really happened. In the corner with all of those people, me saying the Rosary, it was like Mary got up as I am staring at the place. She says, “Here, would you like to hold Him?” And to be able to hold Christ in my arms, for that little bit of time, to become one with the place where Christ was born. And I think that the best way that we can focus on that reality for ourselves is what Abbot Kodell, who was a Benedictine, talks about. He says this is the mantra of God. The mantra of God is just three things. I am with you. I love you. Trust me. The mantra of God says again and again and again. I am with you. I love you. Trust me. When God becomes Emmanuel, when the God of the Universe humbles Himself before you and me and He becomes a baby, He tells us that when we come and focus on God, we don’t have to be afraid. And again sometimes when you think that here comes this powerful God and He is all powerful. He is the Creator of the Universe. He is the judge of the living and the dead. But He became a baby to save you and me from our sins. He became a baby to save us. He became one of us. And when He became this baby, He became the Bread of Life. He gave us life. He became so vulnerable. So if you are afraid of God, and you are petrified, you hold Him for a while in the manger. You go there. And you hold Jesus Christ. And as you hold the God of the Universe in your arms, you find out how vulnerable He becomes to you and me. That we can take Him, we could kill Him, we could abuse Him, we could do anything to this God who holds the universe in His hands and becomes so vulnerable as a baby in ours. This God who becomes the Bread of Life at this Mass and every Mass throughout the world, every day, that God who the Universe cannot contain, humbles Himself and becomes Bread for us. And when I give you the God of the Universe or Father or Deacon or the extraordinary minister gives you the God of the Universe, you can take Him, you can drop Him, you can step on Him, you can spit on Him. The God of the Universe becomes Bread and vulnerable to you. To prove to you and me that we are not alone. That He is with us. At our most vulnerable time He is with us. And how much more that we need to know that than this year with all the horrendous tragedies that have happened? We need to know that we never go through anything alone that He is with us. When you wake up in the middle of the night and you are afraid, He is with us. But so often we try to do it alone. And that is why we are lonely. And that is why we are afraid. Because we think we are the God of the Universe, and how we are not. We need our God to be with us. And then it just doesn’t tell you because the mantra of God is I am with you, I love you, trust me. So the second part of God’s mantra is I love you. And again when you look at all the things we talked about for Christmas. When you look at John and John says, “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son,” that is God’s proof that He loves us. Now again we go right back in to, okay now You love me I have to earn it. No, no. Earned love isn’t love, is it? Earned love is not love. If you have to earn someone’s love they don’t love you. If they tell you, you have to do this, this, and this for me to love you, then that person does not love you. The God of the Universe, while you and I were still sinners, still cursing Him, still away from Him, died for us to prove His love for us. You don’t have to prove your love for Him or He isn’t a God of Love. He proves His love for us. Again, to go all the way back to Abraham, when He was going to sacrifice His son. “You give up your son for Me,” and Abraham goes to do it, then God says, “Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare. You don’t have to give up your son to prove you love Me, Abraham. I’ll give up My Son to prove I love you.” And that is what He does in the manger. He lets His Son become food that begins there at the House of Bread in the manger a feeding trough for us to prove love. We don’t have to earn His love. He has already given it. Now once you receive that love, you respond in love. You don’t respond in fear. You respond in love. And there is where it comes to the third part of the mantra of God. I am with you, I love you, trust me. You ever sit there, if you learned trust, if you ever, like when I was growing up of course, my degree was in counseling and we had to go in to these places where you went and there were retreats. And one of the things you had to do on the retreats in those days wasn’t pray much. You had to go and do trust walks. Have you ever been on a trust walk or a trust fall? You know the trust walk they would blind fold you and someone would tell you where to go and you had to trust them. Or a trust fall, you had to stand on top of the picnic table because you are usually out in the woods, and you have to fall blindfolded or your eyes closed. You would have to trust these people were going to catch you. Now, sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. Depends on what kind of friends you had. Anyway, so, but when God looks at me and you and says His mantra is trust Me, we can always trust Him. But the way we trust Him, is to surrender ourselves. The only way to trust Him is to give ourselves completely over to Him because of love. Now, what will that cost you to do that? Your life. Holding nothing back. But you can’t trust Him unless you know that He loves you. Unless you know, “Okay Lord, if I close my eyes and jump, You are going to catch me.” It’s the way that it is. I am with you. I love you. Trust me. And so what He is asking you for this Christmas is for you and I to trust Him to surrender everything to Him.