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Fr. Timothy Radcliffe
preaches for the Mass during the Day on the Nativity of the Lord.
This morning we are
celebrating the birthday of God. This birthday is unlike our own. On
our birthdays we celebrate -- or lament -- all the years that have
passed since we were born.
But at Christmas we
do not celebrate that Jesus is 2002 years old, or however many years
have passed. We rejoice in the birth of God as a baby. Every Christmas
is a celebration that God came among us as a newborn child.
This is because God
is always among us as one who is young. St Augustine wrote that God is younger than all
else.
We have become older
than our God. This means that God always retains that fresh vigour of
youth, the vitality and playfulness of one who is always ready to
begin anew.
We believe that God
is eternal, and so God is often represented as immensely old. But if
no time passes for God, then he is always also at the beginning,
eternally youthful.
Youthfulness is said
to be the characteristic of hope, because to hope is to be ready for a
future which is always open and long, however old one may be. The
French poet Charles Péguy wrote a poem on hope, which he saw
symbolized by his nine-year old daughter. He writes that absolutely nothing
at all holds except because of the young child Hope, because of she
who continuously begins again, and who always promises, who guarantees
everything, who assures tomorrow to today, and this afternoon to this
morning, and life to life and even eternity to time.
So we celebrate
Christmas by letting God renew your youth like the eagle. (Ps.103:5)
And it is the
evangelist whose symbol is the eagle who writes that to all who accept
the Word of God, he gave power to become
the children of God, to all who believe in the name of him who was
born not out of human stock or the urge of the flesh or the will of
man but of God himself.
Being a child of God
means more than having God as one's Father. It means sharing in the
eternal youthfulness of the child whose birth we celebrate today.
That does not mean
pretending to look young, hiding the wrinkles, dying one's hair, or
fleeing from the signs of age. We do age and must not fear it. We must
not be mutton dressed up as the Lamb of God!
It does mean that we
can shed the temptations of those who grow older, of thinking that
nothing new can be dared, that safety is better than taking a risk, of
fatalism and cynicism. We can let God renew hope in our hearts.
Let us also celebrate
Christmas by giving a chance to those abiding images of God, the
children and the young. I went back to Rwanda after the genocide. A
Canadian Dominican who had worked there for twenty-five years took me
to see the ruins of where he had lived. So many friends had died and
all his life's work seemed to be destroyed.
But he gave me a
photograph of himself holding two Rwandan babies. And on the back he
wrote, Africa has a future.
Because of the child
whose birth we celebrate today, then we can also say Humanity has a
future.
This last year has
been painful for the Church in relation to the young. The headlines
have so often been of stories of sexual or physical abuse. So let us
work for a future in which the young may thrive. Let them truly be
children. Let them not be seen as consumers in the market place, to be
enthralled by designer labels, or as sexual objects to be used. Let
them have the hopeful qualities of youth, the capacity for play, for
experiment, and for daring.
Above all let them
live. This day I think of the babies who are surely being born today
in the Dominican hospital in Baghdad. Let them not be engulfed in war.
May they live to celebrate another Christmas, the feast of the child
who is always newborn. May we be moved by that fresh young hope for
humanity's future.
Happy Christmas.
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Fr. Timothy Radcliffe was Master of the Order of Preachers from 1992
to 2001. He is the only member of the English Province to have held
the office since the Order's foundation in 1216. fr. Timothy is also
the author of two very popular books drawn from his experiences,
available
by clicking here.
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