Father Thomas Welbers' Homily

Before I begin I'd like to call your attention to my Pastor's Desk colulmn in today's Sunday bulletin which has a description of the lengthy, often confusing, and usually boring list of names that make up the genealogy of Jesus in St. Matthew's Gospel, which is the first part of the Gospel reading for Christmas Vigil. These men (and four women) are truly our ancestors in faith, and it's good for us to get to know them.

Throughout the centuries, humankind has searched for God under one guise or another. The varieties of religions and religious experiences – as well as the many substitutes for religion, both ancient and modern – speak of this unending quest. And yet we never seem to find God in a fully satisfying way, in a way that finally fulfills St. Augustine’s expression of longing, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you, O Lord.”

The heart of the message of Christmas is that we cannot find God, and God knows that. So God has found us. We don’t have to search any more; God has found us in the place where we cannot avoid coming – the manger.

The significance of the manger is not just that it was a convenient substitute for a crib. It was the feeding trough for the animals. The word comes through French from the Latin “manducare,” meaning to eat. (You’re familiar with the root word if you have an Italian grandmother – “Mangia, mangia – eat, eat.” One of our local parishioner-owned restaurants has that name too, “Tutti Mangia” – all come and eat.)

And so the mystery of the incarnation, the “enfleshment” of God, the God who has found us, who has become human like us, is first revealed in a place where food is put for living creatures to eat. Can we have a more clear connection between the coming of Christ and the Eucharist? God has not only found us, he has come to be our nourishment, to satisfy our every hunger – because our every hunger is ultimately hunger for God.

In this “Year of the Eucharist,” which Pope John Paul designated from last October to next October, the Holy Father reminds us of an insight that comes from the very first days of the Church. When we celebrate the Eucharist, we are nourished from two tables, the Table of the Word and the Table of the Sacrament. It is the same Jesus, the Son of God whom we first encountered in the manger, who comes to us and nourishes us, who satisfies our hunger. At the Table of the Word, in the proclamation of his word in Scripture, he comes to satisfy our hunger for meaning, to bring understanding and wisdom into our darkness and confusion. And at the Table of the Sacrament, he comes under the form of ordinary food, bread and wine, he comes in his sacrificial death and resurrection, he comes to satisfy our hunger for God’s unconditional love, we are no longer alone, we are given the pledge of loving union and fulfillment that will never end.

The Holy Father has also called the Eucharist the manifestation of the Church, for in our communion with Jesus Christ, we are in communion with one another as well. What we truly are, members of his body, is openly proclaimed and the bonds of our unity with all other members of his body are strengthened. If we open our hearts to Jesus, he will open our hearts to his brothers and sisters as well.

We come here to be nourished at the twin Tables of Word and Sacrament, but in so doing we are transformed. If we let the Lord find us and nourish us here, he will transform us as well. We will go from here different than when we came. How different? If we let him, Jesus will open our eyes, as he opened the eyes of the blind, to see him where he is looking for us – in those who are still hungry and suffering in our world. “What you do to the least of my brothers or sisters, you do to me.”

And so, we are called to the manger. The infant Jesus does not want us just to gaze admiringly, but to come, and eat. Eat the body of his sacrifice, drink the blood of the New Covenant, poured out for us. Become one with him, as he has found us and become one with us. Be fed with the new hope of his loving presence, and be filled with his compassion that he may use us as instruments to touch, heal and nourish those in our world who continue to hunger for the God who has already found us.

© 2004 Thomas Welbers