The Draw of a Baby

 Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord–Vigil Mass
    Special Masses like the Sacred Tridduum, Easter, and Christmas, often have special rituals associated with them for priests.  At Holy Thursday and Good Friday we have special rites that remember the Lord’s institution of the Eucharist and the Priesthood, as well as His Passion.  At the Easter Vigil we hear the great hymn of the Exultet.  And tonight, at Christmas, we placed the baby Jesus in the creche for the first time this Christmas season.  There is something that is truly awesome (filling me with awe) when I take the baby Jesus and kneel down to put Him in the manger.
    There is something special about children.  Even the gruffest, stone-faced person can become a pile of mush in the presence of a baby.  Yes, babies are a lot of work, but their simply, loving presence can fill a room with warmth and joy.  And when a baby cries, everyone wants to make sure that the child is ok.  Mothers, in particular, seem to have special hearing when it comes to listening for the cries of a little one.

    Tonight we celebrate our God-made-man, but not yet fully a man, but a little baby.  Mary and Joseph, who knew their child to be God must have had reactions to Jesus in two different ways.  On the one hand, Jesus was Mary’s child and in the paternal care of Joseph.  He was theirs, and depended on both of them for all of His needs.  In some ways He was like any other child, filling the Holy Family with joy and warmth, and yet also calling for their attention as He cried for whatever needs He had at each moment.  On the other hand, He was also God, and so took on special attention and adoration of Mary and Joseph.  
    To outsiders, too–the shepherds and maybe the neighbors in Bethlehem–Jesus must have drawn their attention.  Perhaps they didn’t quite recognize that Jesus was God, and yet He was a baby, who draws people in by their innocence and dependence.  And this is the genius of God: that in coming to us, God did not choose to become a powerful ruler with great strength; God did not appear as an angel full of light and power; God chose to become, in Jesus, a little baby, who depended others for His safety and basic needs.  He was vulnerable in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the Annunciation, and remained vulnerable especially throughout his childhood.  Did God choose to become a baby because He knew that we would be drawn by a little child, or are we drawn to little children because God wrote within our very being a desire for everyone who appears like the Christ-child?  In either case, God appeared to us not in strength, but in weakness; not in power, but in fragility; not as a grown warrior, but as a defenseless baby.
    Many saints have imagined themselves being at Bethlehem when Jesus was born.  Perhaps you have, too.  You have wondered what it would be like to hear the angels singing, “Glory to God in the highest” in the night sky over Bethlehem.  You have wondered what it would be like to go to the cave, where Jesus was born (though many of you probably think of the barn-like structure that St. Francis of Assisi made popular).  Perhaps you have imagined yourself standing next to Mary or Joseph, and maybe even asking to hold baby Jesus for a moment, and just looking at Him and smiling, as He smiles back to, or sleeps soundly in your arms, swaddled in a cloth.  
    But in this time of waiting for Christ to return, Christ is still vulnerable to us.  While He is King of kings and Lord of lords, reigning from His throne in heaven, He still does not force Himself on us in power, but waits for us to come to Him, to be filled with His joy, to listen for His voice.  And we are free to care for Him tenderly, to hear His voice, or to ignore Him and be deaf to His cries.
    I carried at this Mass in my arms an image of baby Jesus, small and fragile.  But I hold the true Jesus, not just an image, every time I celebrate Mass.  Each time I hold in my hands the sacred host, made the Body and Blood of Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit and my ministry, unworthy though I am, I hold Jesus who was born for us in my hands, and He is vulnerable.  Each time I proclaim the Gospel, I hear Jesus’ cries of love for us as He shares who God the Father is, how much He loves us, and how beautiful the Kingdom of Heaven is, for those who are willing to follow Him.  
    And the same is true for everyone here.  God makes Himself vulnerable for you.  He cries out for you.  Each Sunday and Holyday He cries for us to come and spend time with Him, not to attend to His needs as much as to fulfill our own need for God, to fill the empty hole in our hearts that can only be satisfied by God.  Each Mass Jesus allows Himself to be received in the Eucharist, to be fragile on our tongue, or in our hands.  We can receive Jesus lovingly in a state of grace, if we are unaware of any serious sins that have separated us from God.  Each Mass Jesus speaks to us of how much He loves us, and how He desires us to live in accordance with His will, and not our own; to live in the light, and not in the darkness; to be people of peace and not of hatred, prejudice, and violence.  Jesus cries out to us to live according to His pattern of life, and not the selfish life that the world proclaims.  And we can heed His cries and His invitation, or we can ignore it.  We can care for Him with the way we live our lives, or we can abandon Him and pretend He doesn’t exist, or that He is not important to us.
    Tonight God draws us in, as a little child, innocent and vulnerable, as we celebrate Christmas.  Like a baby, God makes Himself small for us that we can approach Him and love Him.  We are invited to see the warmth and joy of the Christ-child’s face, and to listen attentively to His voice, not only today, but every day, week, and month of the year.  “What child is this /who laid to rest / on Mary’s lap is sleeping?”  “O come, let us adore him Christ the Lord!”