God at the heart of our human precariousness

Homily

On this Sunday of the Nativity of the Lord, Abbé Pascal KOLESNORÉ, invites us to a meditation under the theme: “God at the heart of our human precariousness “.

VSEvery Sunday, La Croix Africa takes up the commentary taken from the missal “Prions en Eglise Afrique”, published by Bayard Afrique.

Let’s imagine a Christmas without a nativity scene, without angels, without shepherds, without gloria… Obviously it’s not Christmas! Yet that is what the readings are for us on this Christmas morning. Everything that makes Christmas in our imagination suddenly disappeared, and instead, dry poetic narratives. To make these theological summaries less austere, let’s use the following trick: let’s stand in front of the crib, in front of the newborn baby in Bethlehem, let the verses declaimed from today’s readings resonate in the background: “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God” : it is the affirmation of the divine pre-existence of the baby before us. This divine pre-existence knows a disinstallation by its descent, its installation at the heart of our humanity. God stops dwelling in the celestial clouds to take up residence on earth and in our flesh through this baby.

Saint John puts it this way: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us!” In other words, he pitched his tent among us. Humanity becomes the sanctuary of divinity; the earth robs the sky of the monopoly of divinity. He is one of us, a close God, immersed in history, taking the risk of being tossed about in its waves, of suffering its shocks. This fact that we celebrate today is decisive for the fate of our African nations.

At the heart of our precariousness, at the heart of human darkness, he is there; he is a light: “The Word was the true Light, which enlightens every man as he comes into the world”. In the silence faced with the fate of our countries stripped of their resources, bruised, threatened in their survival, there is a word that becomes flesh. He bears our suffering. And after ? Present to our unenviable fate, of course, but what is he doing?

The divine movement of descent and dwelling in the heart of our humanity does not stop at a simple mundane immersion. It ends and crowns itself in a second movement, the ascent to the heart of divine glory. The second reading announces it: “The Son, having accomplished the purification of sins, sat down at the right hand of the divine Majesty in the heights of heaven”. In fact, he goes down to go up with him.

To do this, God in the heart of our human storms, of our darkness, opens the way before us! Isaiah announced it: “How beautiful on the mountains are the footsteps of the messenger, the bearer of good news, who announces salvation”. Step by step with us, he supports our ascent, opens doors for us; he opens our hearts to hope.

Finally, Jesus comes to what is poor, miserable, degraded to become greatness, to help us to get up, to rise with him, leaving us free from all resignation, from all flight from our responsibilities. So let the Word take flesh in us, inhabit our fate, for strength and victory belong to The Light.

Father Pascal KOLESNORÉ, Major Seminary of Kossoghin, Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso)