Homily on 29 Dec 2022, Fifth Day in the Christmas Octave
Merry Christmas to all of you! Today, the fifth day of Christmas, we continue celebrating with joyful solemnity the birth of our Lord.
It is good for us to be reminded that the entire week between December 25 to January 1 in the liturgy of the Church is called the “Christmas Octave”. The word “octave” means a period of eight days. Hence, for eight consecutive days until January 1, Christmas is to be celebrated in all Catholic Churches with extraordinary joy and solemnity such that everyday we are asked to sing the “Glory to God in the Highest”, a hymn reserved only for Sundays, feasts and solemnities. We Catholics just feel that, after four weeks of advent preparation and nine days of Misa de Gallo, the celebration of Christ’s birth on December 25 should be extended for another seven days. We just feel a deep sense of joy and gratitude for the birth of the longed for Savior, a joy that cannot be contained for just one day. Consequently we should not feel awkward or get tired of greeting each other “Merry Christmas” even today or the day after tomorrow.
On this fifth day we continue reflecting on the mystery of Christ’s Nativity. The gospel we have heard today presents to us the couple named Joseph and Mary bringing the holy child to be presented at the temple in fulfillment of the Mosaic Law. They also offered a sacrifice to God, a pair of two turtle doves, known to be the offering of the poor. And while they were there at the temple, an old man named, Simeon, a righteous and devout Jew, suddenly approached them. He must have been moved by the Spirit to recognize the holy child to be the promised Messiah, the anointed one whom he had been waiting for all his life. And so taking the child in his arms he gave thanks to God and predicted the future of the child. He prophesied about what the child would be when he grows up, and how much pain his Mother Mary would have to bear in relation to her son’s Messianic mission.
What lessons or inspiration can we get from this gospel story? Let me share with you at least two.
(1) Joseph and Mary were ordinary people from Nazareth who received a very noble calling from God and yet chose to remain simple, humble, law-abiding and God-fearing. And even after the baby Jesus was born they did not become arrogant nor did they develop a strong sense of entitlement at all. They could have said to the priests “we don’t need to offer a sacrifice in the temple, because this baby we have is the Son of God who is supposed to receive the sacrifices from other people. But no, they said none of those things. As righteous and devout Jews they chose to faithfully follow the law. And although financially challenged, they willingly bought a pair of turtle doves and offered it as a sacrifice to God in the temple.
Today we too are asked to offer something to God every time we come to church, whenever we attend Mass, request for baptism, matrimony, blessing or the like. It is not definitely a payment for a certain service or commodity but rather our counterpart in relation to what Jesus already offered on the cross – his total self – for our salvation. And so, as Jesus offered his sacrifice whole-heartedly so should we present our offerings to God through the Church.
(2) Simeon too was a righteous and devout man who kept waiting patiently and religiously all his life for the coming of the promised Messiah. And so God blessed him with the grace and privilege of being able to recognize with his own eyes the anointed child being brought by Joseph and Mary at the temple. The best part of it was this, being able to hold the baby in his feeble arms gave him so much joy that he blessed God in return. And, moved by the Spirit, he was able to foretell the future of the child and likewise his Mother. One can never be too old to see God’s wonderful deeds happening both in the present and in the future.
I am sure some of you who are of senior age can testify to this. I personally know of someone who after being a widower for several years never thought he could ever love again. But God allowed him to meet another special someone in his life, still single and most of all a devout Catholic. And soon he was blessed to have been married for a second time at sixty-six years old to this fine lady of forty-four years of age. In fact I was the one who officiated their wedding last January 23 of this year. Moreover, a few months later after turning sixty-seven this same man of senior age was commissioned as an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion in their parish in Pasig. Well, he just happened to be my elder brother. You see, one can never be too old to see God’s mighty deeds at work in one’s life even after sixty.
As we continue to celebrate Christmas, may we learn from these three significant persons presented to us in the gospel today, namely, Joseph, Mary and Simeon. Like them may we be truly righteous and deeply devout in the way we live our Christian faith. May we in a very special way be like Simeon, endowed with the gift of wisdom and discernment so that with the eyes of faith we may be able to see the amazingly wonderful things God is doing in our lives at present, as well as the surprisingly beautiful plans he has in the future.
May this Eucharist empower us to celebrate Christmas with unceasing joy knowing that God is always with us no matter what happens. GiGsss!
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