December 25, 2024

Bishop Byrne: ‘Is there room for Jesus at your Inn?’

REGIONAL
Staff Report

SPRINGFIELD — On Christmas Eve, Springfield Bishop William D. Byrne celebrated the 4 p.m. Mass at St. Michael’s Cathedral. The Mass will be broadcast on Christmas Day at 11 a.m. on WWLP-22NEWS.

The following is the text of the bishop’s homily at this Christmas Eve Mass:

This past April several college chums and I walked the Camino de Santiago in Compostela.  We began in Vigo in northern Spain.  For the next week we walked 90 miles to the pilgrimage city of Santiago where Saint James is buried.  For over 1,000 years pilgrims have been making this journey and we followed in the footsteps of saints and sinner to visit pray at the tomb of St. James.  It was a wonderful but arduous journey through mountains, along beaches, through cities and river beds.  While challenging we still finished our 10-12 mile days of walking each day at a hotel, with a hot shower and a delicious meal.

Why is this significant?  90 miles is the reason.  90 miles is the distance between Nazareth to Bethlehem.  90 miles is the journey that Joseph and the very pregnant Mary travelled to fulfill the order of Caesar that a census be taken and each must return to his home village to be registered. 90 miles to arrive and find that “there was no room for them in the inn”…. no hot shower, no assortment of tapas, no glass of wine to toast the days walk.

The journey to Bethlehem had no rest stops or minimarts.  The journey to Bethlehem was fraught with danger.  A young man and a very pregnant wife and presumably a donkey would feel very alone and vulnerable.  To find no place to stay with contractions starting must have felt very lonely and dispiriting.  

This is where God chose to enter in to the world.  He came not into riches.  He came into utter poverty.  He arrived not into joy, but into loneliness and despair. God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son into the very depth of the human condition.  Why oh why?

Isaiah the prophet understood the answer 800 years before Jesus came.  He told the world the that the answer was coming.  As we hear in today’s first reading:

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shone.

The Savior was entering into our darkness to bring the light, not A light but THE light.  Jesus came in homelessness so that, as GK Chesterton so famously penned, “all men could find a home.”

Christmas makes no sense without Easter and Easter makes no sense if Jesus was not born and is not fully God and fully human.  St. Paul explains in our second reading:

[Our] Savior Jesus Christ,
who gave himself for us to deliver us from all lawlessness 
and to cleanse for himself a people as his own, 
eager to do what is good.

Jesus came to save us.  Jesus comes to heal us.  Jesus calls us to his eternal Kingdom from within our lives and our hearts, from within our communities and families.

So also comes a second donkey ride at the end of his life.  He enters into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday on a donkey.  As he gathers his Apostles at the Last Supper to give them the gift of the Priesthood and the Eucharist, to one who was born homeless says to us:

In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be. (Jn. 14, 2-3)

Jesus is saying to us, “You are no longer homeless because in me you have a home.  You are never alone because in me you belong.  You have nothing to fear, not even death, because I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.”

Now see the angel arrayed in heavenly splendor invite the shepherd to meet their Savior with these words:

The angel said to them,
“Do not be afraid;
for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy 
that will be for all the people.
For today in the city of David 
a savior has been born for you who is Christ and Lord.
And this will be a sign for you: 
you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes 
and lying in a manger.”
And suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel,
praising God and saying:
    “Glory to God in the highest
        and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

The homeless infant who is so vulnerable is the sign that God has entered into vulnerability.  He has entered into our lives to heal us from within. So the angels song of jubilation is our most natural reaction.  Sing the verse of the angels with me. 

Gloria, in excelsis Deo! Gloria, in excelsis Deo!

In order for this song of joy to truly resound in our hearts one thing is required.  One question must be answered.  Is there room for Jesus at your Inn.  When he knocks, is there a place for him in your home?  As he calls will, you make room for Jesus in your hearts.

Jesus says there are many rooms for us and then on that last supper gives us the Eucharist.  Is there room in our week, each week, to meet him at Mass?  The true joy of Christmas is found in the answer to that question.  This year Jesus asks us to say yes.  Make room for him at your Inn every day.  Let’s sing the angels’ song again!

Gloria, in excelsis Deo! Gloria, in excelsis Deo!

Merry Christmas and Praised be Jesus Christ. Now and Forever!