Christmas In Outer Space: Homily for the 4th Sunday of Advent

 

O Emmanuel, 

Rex et legifer noster, 

exspectatio gentium, et Salvator earum:

veni ad salvandum nos Domine Deus noster.

 

“O Emmanuel, 

God with us, our King and lawgiver, 

the expected of the nations and their Savior: 

come to save us, O Lord our God.”

 

Last night at evening prayer, the Church throughout the world, recited the last of the seven “O Antiphons” that introduce and close Mary’s Magnificat.  In so doing we finished the Latin anagram that tells us: ERO CRAS: Tomorrow I come. Tomorrow I am there. Tomorrow I will be.  It is an important moment in the Church’s liturgical life, one that is not emphasized enough today.   Indeed, many are oblivious to the “ O Antiphons” that, in the past, were chanted at vespers with great solemnity.

 

This year is a bit unusual.  We have had the shortest advent possible. This evening around 4:00 PM we begin the Great Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord commemorating that Jesus Christ, true God and true man, was born into and onto this world, the same world on which we live and die.  As we stand on the cusp of the Feast, try to put the sloppy sentimental images out of your head.  Banish images of those annoying chubby angels hovering over an antiseptic creche. Mary was not clad in blue and white watered silk encrusted with rhinestones. And there were no halos emanating a soft glow.  

 

What we call "The Christmas Story" does not end with the angels' Hosanna, in Excelsis.  The Christmas Story is barely the beginning of the story of our redemption.  

There was much to be endured and suffered before the final chapter, before the story of our salvation through Jesus' saving act would be written. The Feast of the Nativity of the Lord is a human and humane one.  We can identify with Mary and Joseph as young parents who struggled just as we do today, who were as stressed as we are, and experienced the same emotions of fear and anxiety,  joy and sorrow, that we experience on a daily basis.   Mary and Joseph knew the same struggle and uncertainty that we are living today. Carve out some quiet time during this feast and meditate on their story. It may be very revealing. 

 

An oftentimes ignored part of the journey to Bethlehem was its difficulty.  Bethlehem is 90 miles from Nazareth.  Despite the sappy greeting cards showing Mary, Joseph, and a donkey traveling alone guided only by a star, no couple in its right mind would have traveled alone without the protection of a caravan.  Robbery, abduction, and death at the hands of brigands were as much a risk then as mugging, robbery, and death are now for one foolish enough to wander deserted city streets at 3:00 AM.  Given the distance and impossibility of covering more than twenty or so miles per day, the journey to Bethlehem required at least six days, and probably more. It would not have been easy for a woman nearing term.

 

There is no room for Santa Claus, whiskey-filled advent calendars, or ugly Christmas sweaters in this version of the story.  There is room to think back to Apollo 8, the first manned space mission to leave the confines of earth orbit.  Between December 21 and 27, 1968 Astronauts Bill Anders, Jim Lovell, and mission commander Frank Borman orbited the moon without landing.  The moon landing would come a few months later on July 16, 1969.

 

In a live broadcast from their space capsule on Christmas Eve 1968--55 years ago today--each of the astronauts read part of the Creation narrative from Genesis chapters 1-10 while orbiting the moon.  Borman commented "One of the things that was truly historic was that we got that good Catholic Bill Anders to read from the King James Version.”  That reading caused Madalyn Murray O'Hair, a chronically angry, cranky, dyspeptic and notoriously nasty atheist, to sue the U.S. government claiming that the astronauts were in violation of the first amendment.  The Supreme Court dismissed the suit explaining that the court lacked jurisdiction.   

 

As part of the broadcasts, Borman, who just died on November 7 at age 95 read a prayer that he wrote for the occasion.  His prayer is even more relevant and necessary today than it was then. 

 

“Give us, O God, the vision 

which can see Your love in the world 

in spite of human failure.

 

Give us the faith

to trust Your goodness 

in spite of our ignorance and weakness.

 

Give us the knowledge

that we may continue to pray 

with understanding hearts.

 

And show us what each one of us can do 

to set forward

the coming of the day

of universal peace.”      

 

And thus we pray:

Veni veni Emmanuel

captivum solve Israel.    

 

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The photos are from Ljubljana during Advent and Christmas 2016.  One of the great experiences of my life.  Would have been happy to stay indefinitely.