Christmas Sermon: “Are We Really Living With Jesus? – Catholic-Riposte

La Porte Latine publishes thehomily delivered by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre on Christmas Day 1978 :

My dear friends,
My dear brothers,

The Church, in preparing for this feast of Christmas – during Advent – ​​evokes three kinds of comings of Our Lord to us:

1. The first is that which we celebrate today in particular and which the feast of Christmas reminds us of, the coming of Our Lord among us, through the intermediary of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary.
2. The second is evoked in the texts that the Church presents to us during Advent, it is that of the coming of Our Lord at the end of the world, to judge men.
3. Finally, the third coming of Jesus among us is the one that takes place for each of us: the coming of Jesus into our souls.

And, ultimately, if we meditate even slightly on the texts that the Church offers us during these weeks, we realize that the most important coming is the one that concerns us. For if Our Lord wanted to come down here below, it is for us, it is for our salvation. And if Our Lord will come on the clouds of Heaven to judge us, it is also to know what we have done with the means that Our Lord has given us to work out our salvation.

And the feast of Christmas is the one that particularly evokes in us and for us the coming of Jesus to Bethlehem, who gives us admirable lessons. Because when Our Lord comes on the clouds of Heaven, He will ask us: “What have you done, of all that I have done for you. How did you receive me during your pilgrimage on earth. How did you receive me in my messages? How did you receive my apostles? How did you receive my Sacrifice, my sacraments? »

So what will our response be? May it be, my very dear brothers, that which was first of all that of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary. How did Mary receive Jesus? With thanksgiving. I told you yesterday, she sang her Magnificat. She received Him with all her soul by pronouncing her Fiat.

And God knows if she had the favorable and necessary dispositions to receive Jesus worthily.

Joseph too, after hesitating about Mary Most Holy, received extraordinary graces to receive Jesus and Mary.

And how wonderful the story of Bethlehem is in this regard. When we see the shepherds, to whom the angels announce the coming of Jesus, what do the shepherds do? They could have done, as perhaps many of us would have done: but it’s dark; it’s cold ; but we do not know the way; but we will not find it.

And many excuses could have come into their minds for not going to meet Jesus.

But no. That’s not what the shepherds did. The Gospel tells us: “They rose up and hastened” – festive – they hurried to find Jesus. And they found him and they sang his praises.

And can we not think that they offered Jesus, perhaps a lamb, a sign of what Saint John the Baptist would say later: “Behold the Lamb of God”? Perhaps they offered him some products from their flock, so that Mary and Joseph could see the love they had for Jesus.

And then, in a missionary spirit, the shepherds spoke; they spread the news and those – says the Gospel – who heard their story were amazed. They too sang the praises of God.

And how did the angels not encourage us to receive Jesus by singing their song: Gloria in exelcis Deo “Glory to God in Heaven and peace to men of upright will”.

And now we must ask ourselves, we my dear brothers, what have we done so far to receive Jesus? Have you heard in the Gospel that we have just read: And sui eum receperunt (jn 1.11): “They did not receive it”. He came to his house – for everything belongs to him, we ourselves belong to him – in propria come and eum non receperunt. They did like those at the inn in Bethlehem, who did not want to receive the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph. They did not receive Jesus.

Those, however, who receive Jesus, says Saint John, in the Gospel, these are the sons of God. What have we done, we, my very dear brothers? Have we really received Jesus? Are we really living with Jesus? Do we really care in our souls for the salvation of our souls? Because that is why Jesus came down here. This is the name given to it. When the angel Gabriel comes to see the Virgin Mary and says to her: “The one you give birth to will be the Savior of the world”. And he repeats the same thing to the shepherds: “He whom you will see is the Savior of the world”: Salvator mundi. It is also Salvator mundi for each of us.

We need to apply the virtue of Our Lord’s grace and resurrection to our souls. Let’s not be indifferent to Jesus. Like Mary, let us receive Jesus with the dispositions that are necessary to receive Him worthily.

And yet, Jesus loved us so much. If certainly, we did not have the joy of being in Bethlehem – ah, how happy we would have been no doubt, if we had been close to the shepherds and if with them we had been able to accompany them to Mary and Joseph and see the Child Jesus – certainly we would have been happy. But Our Lord does even more for us, even more than being able to carry Jesus in our arms. We can receive Him within ourselves through the Holy Eucharist.

When we want, every day, Jesus is at our disposal so that we receive Him, within us; that we somehow become one with Him.

As Saint Paul says: “It is no longer I who live, it is Christ who lives in me. »

And do we really live with Our Lord Jesus Christ throughout our days? Do we live with his Spirit, in his Spirit? Are we fulfilling his commandments? Do we recite these prayers, which prepare us for communion and in which we promise Our Lord never again to separate us from Him, that we will never separate ourselves from Him?

This is what is said in our prayers before Communion. Do we really never separate ourselves from Jesus? This is what we must ask. And here is the great lesson of Christmas today.

Let us ask the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, ask Saint Joseph, ask the shepherds, the holy Angels who surrounded Jesus at his birth and who welcomed him with great hearts, let us ask them to give us this heart that they had so that we too can worthily receive Jesus into our souls and be missionaries.

We must think of those who do not have the graces we have. To those who do not know Our Lord Jesus Christ; to those who no longer receive Him. And today particularly, we are unfortunately in a time when so many people are abandoning Jesus; those who knew Him forsook Him.

So we will do everything possible, so that in our families, our parents, our brothers, our sisters, all those who are our friends, that we can make sure that they know Jesus again and that they receive Him, as the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph and the holy shepherds.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. So be it.