Homily of His Excellency Selim Sfeir Maronite Archbishop of Cyprus
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
“Glory to you, O only Son, you are the hope of the nations, awaited by all generations. You are without beginning or end, yet, at the appointed time, you chose to be born as a child. You are the great and mighty One, yet you became man without any change to your divinity. You enriched creation, yet you have become poor, and your mother sang spiritual songs to you as she carried you in her arms.” – Ramsho
The Maronite Church celebrates today the genealogy of Jesus. St. Matthew’s gospel begins by setting out the genealogy of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham, and then traces his human descent by bringing his ancestral line down to his mother’s husband, St. Joseph. In the gospel of St. Luke, the author traces his parentage backward step by step to the actual father of mankind, to show that both the first and the last Adam share the same nature.
The Son of God, in His omnipotence, could have come to save us, to teach us and to sanctify us by merely making an appearance, such as he did in the Old Testament to Abraham, to Moses, and to Jacob. He accepted their hospitality, ate the food Abraham placed before Him, instructed Moses from the Burning Bush, and even wrestled with Jacob until the morning light. All this, He could have done for us and spared Himself the enormous indignity of becoming a small helpless child.
By being born ‘in the likeness of sinful flesh’, He united our nature to His. The whole human race, under the tyranny of Satan, profited from His victory. This victory could not be obtained outside of our human condition. Through the miraculous blending of the divine and the human, the Holy Spirit, through Christ, gave us a spiritual birth and freed us from the power of the devil.
These beautiful and holy days must therefore be a beautiful blending of the human and the divine. As we prepare gifts for the ones we love, let us not forget to give Christ the beautiful gift of our repentance and conversion. Let us not neglect the opportunity to make a good confession before Christmas. This is the best gift you can give to the One who gave you the best gift!
Prayer
O tiny Child of Bethlehem, grant us the grace of a good confession for Christmas!
Catechism of the Catholic Church #1446
“Christ instituted the sacrament of Penance for all sinful members of his Church: above all for those who, since Baptism, have fallen into grave sin, and have lost their baptismal grace and wounded ecclesial communion. It is to them that the sacrament of Penance offers a new possibility to convert and to recover the grace of justification. The Fathers of the Church present this sacrament as “the second plank (of salvation) after the shipwreck which is the loss of grace.”
† Selim Sfeir
Maronite Archbishop of Cyprus