Christmas Eve

Vigil of The Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord
Christmas Vigil—Rev. Mr. Ronnie P. Floyd

Ever since I was a child I always loved reading.

When I was about twelve I picked up one of C.S Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia books, and I was hooked.

And after reading the entire series I moved on to other authors ending up with one of my very favorites: J.R.R. Tolkien

You might remember a few years ago at Christmas time the final chapter of the movie version of Tolkien’s famous Trilogy The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King came out in theaters.

As I was preparing for this homily this book stuck in my mind.

With good reason, Tolkien, a devout Catholic could not help but base his mythical tale on the basic structure of reality,  his Christian Faith, that was so central to his life. Tolkien believed, as I do, that while Children fear monsters under their bed that don’t exist adults fail to fear the monsters that really do exist in dark places.

Although everyday life is usually not as dramatic as one of Tolkien’s stories: most of us are living “a hobbits life” of creature comforts and rountine tedium

Tolkien believed that in the absence of proactive good without someone to guide society in the way of truth, and ultimately without access to God, mankind would grow careless, allowing dark things to emerge and become powerful.

In the absence of a good King, power, greed, ambition, lust, and those individuals and forces that would use these things to control people would necessarily try to lead mankind and the world down the road to destruction.

It’s a pretty fantastic story—and yet it is our story.
We have all seen the results of evil in the world so often during the last century:
in Communism’s iron curtain,
in Nazism’s “scientific” plan
to wipe entire people’s from the face of the Earth
in 40 years of Cold-War on the brink of self-annihilation
and just a few years ago in New York and Washington

but so often we who have seen these things fail to believe in the Evil that is at their root. I think it true, that the devil’s best trick is convincing people that he doesn’t exists.

But as Christians we believe in monsters men who have been corrupted by power, as well as in other creatures, fallen angels, Who want nothing else than to see the world fail. It is important to remember this reality in which we live and in which Christ was born into, a reality which we often forget or ignore just so that we can sleep at night.

While we may sing peaceful songs like: silent night and away in a manger, tonight
We can’t forget that just days after Jesus’ birth King Herod ordered the massacre of the Holy Innocents, hoping to kill the baby Jesus.

As we will hear in a few weeks on the Feast of the Presentation The Prince of Peace; the baby Jesus is born to be a sign of contradiction, destined for the rise and fall of many. On Christmas night we celebrate the Return of the King Jesus, who is born into a long line of Kings going back to David, to Abraham and to Adam, but who is also a king because he is the Son of God and God himself

We celebrate his coming with joy, joy at his arrival, and joy at the promise of victory over evil.

He will shine light on all the dark places of our lives giving us strength to overcome our fears and we must not forget that although the War is won just by the fact of His Birth

Many Battles remain and each of us are called to stand with Him every day of our life--not just avoiding evil, but in doing good!

That is what Christmas is about, and that is what our faith is all about.

As we enter into this reality here at the Altar let us pray that the King of Kings will help us to dispel the powers of darkness and lead each of us to Victory this Christmas.

The King is very near, come out and greet Him!