The title of my homily for December
19th is, “Heroes.”
“Heroes.”
Today’s two readings give us two big bible heroes: Samson
and John the Baptist.
They are placed together here in our readings for today,
because both have similar stories.
Both readings begin with moms who were barren - without
a child - and then there is a promise of a child. After their birth, the story
of Samson and John the Baptist growing up have incidents of surprise and
strange patterns of eating.
And if you put both readings side by side you can see
Luke knew the story of Samson in the Book of Judges. For example Samson’s mom is told to be
careful and take no wine or strong drink and to eat nothing unclean. John the
Baptist in turn is described as drinking neither wine nor strong drink.
Then we read in the Book of Judges and the gospel of Luke
what made them heroes.
QUESTIONS
Do we all have heroes?
In growing up do we all need heroes?
Who have been our heroes?
Then the big question: have we ever done anything heroic?
HEROES
The bible presents us with some amazing heroes.
Our Catholic church presents us with many heroes,
especially the saints.
Our sports world and our world history provides us with
outstanding examples of presidents like Abraham Lincoln and Nelson Mandela.
Of course there are degrees and disagreements about heroes.
Heroes are big sandwiches with the right ingredients:
integrity, leadership, security, saving others, giving hope to others.
Heroes provide
support, hope, victory, and courage.
They give us nerve. They embolden us. They help us to be unafraid.
They are givers not takers. They are movers and they are shakers.
They teach us how to live and how to die.
MOVING TOWARDS
A CONCLUSION
The title of my homily is, “Heroes.”
It used to be a title just for men - and heroines for
women. Now the title, "heroes" works for both men and women.
Thanks for listening. I want to do some more thinking
about the topic - especially the question, “Who have been my heroes?”
I grew up as the youngest and my brother was the oldest
of us four. Like most younger brothers I lived in my brother’s shadow - but it
wasn’t till his cancer - which began with a doctor giving him the news - ironically - on a Good Friday, “You
have 18 months to live at the most.” I asked him then and there, “How are you going to
deal with this?” His answer: “I’ll let
you know.”
It was how he dealt with death and his cancer treatments
that I realized he was a hero to me. Near his death, he said to me, “You asked
me how I would deal with this. Well, thank God for mom and dad who gave us
faith.” Then he added, “Besides faith, I tried humor. I tried to think only of
others. Also I did my exercise and whatever the doctors told me to do.”
CONCLUSION
So give the idea of heroes some thought.
Check out Davie Bowie’s song, “Heroes” as well as Bette
Midler’s song, “Wing beneath my wings.”
The title of my reflection for today is, “Bethlehem.”
Bethlehem is a Christmas word. It’s the traditional place
where Jesus is born.
SOME DATA
Mathew and Luke have the so called infancy narratives and
that’s where we find mention of Bethlehem.
Bethlehem is also the traditional place where David was
born 1000 years before Christ.
The distance between Jerusalem
and Bethlehem is more or less 5.52 miles.
The distance
from Nazareth to Bethlehem is 68 Miles.
Bethlehem
has been a place of pilgrimage down
through the centuries.
It has been
a place of looting, burning, and violence down through the centuries. Right now
at this time there have been some shooting and protesting - like the burning of
signs of Vice President Pence.
The
Christian community keeps getting smaller - because of push back.
Jews,
Christians and Muslims inhabit the place.
When I was
there in the year 2000 the bus had to park in a big bus depot up a bit from
where the so called birthplace of Jesus is.
You walk
from the bus depot a few streets and
then you can enter the so called birthplace through a low door entrance - built that way to block horses
from entering - or carts for looting.
Poets would say it’s to stress humility. In fact it's called, "The Door of Humility." Tour guides like to mention the
meaning of having to bend down - to have
access to the place of Jesus’ birth.
There’s a silver star on a spot where they say
Jesus was born. St. Jerome didn’t like
it - and said the reality of the place was rich without the need for silver.
Jerome
settled in Bethlehem and did some of his writings there and translations of the
Bible into Latin.
Its
population today is about 25 thousand people.
There are 3
big celebrations around this time: December 25 for some Christians; January 6th,
for some Christians - the epiphany; - and
January 19th for Armenian Christians.
MEDITATION POINTS
Make sure you
meditate and pray at this holy time - by stopping at the crib in every church
you enter during the Christmas season. Bring the kids to the crèche in your church. Say a prayer and take a piece of straw.
Have a crib
under your tree. I hear people complaining about others blocking Christmas
crèche in city spots. I respond: it’s reality. Not everyone is a Christian.
Have one in your home or front or back yard or wherever.
Have an
opinion - but think first - about public messages about bringing Christmas
back. One person in the news is implying
that Christmas has been disappearing and we need to bring it back. Another person in the news, is saying, “Christmas
has never gone away.” How do you see it?
I like to
meditate on the word background of the
word “Bethlehem”. Beth is the second
letter of the alphBETH. The letter B is formed in the image of a house. In Hebrew, Bethlehem means house of Bread. Lehem is the word for bread. In Arabic, it's Beth lahem. House of meat. Lahem means meat. So Christ is the
bread and Christ is the meat. Christ is
the lamb sacrificed. Christ sits at our table - breaking bread with us -
hoping to be in communion with us.
