The Human Longing for Redemption

(Fr. Andrew’s Homily for Christmas 2023)

Human beings desire redemption but sometimes look for it in the wrong places. Some people try to redeem themselves by means of achievement, as if their personal worth depended on it. Other people are always looking for approval or appreciation, as if they needed it in order not to feel worthless or unloved... Sometimes our feeling of worthlessness pushes us to throw ourselves into unhealthy ways of coping or into vices, as if feeling good could silence, at least for a moment, the voice constantly telling us “you are a loser, a nobody” or “you are a poor, unhappy person.” The desire for redemption, for recovering our personal dignity looks sometimes like a race, like a rush, like an anxious striving to reach what can never be finally achieved. What is redemption? Or, where is it? Why do we need it? How do we obtain it?

Those are big questions. What I want to say today is that many of us, because of our personal history or because of bad cultural influences or social pressures, have a low concept of ourselves or, perhaps, have a wounded sense of dignity. And I want to suggest that Christmas, the Nativity of Jesus, has a lot to do with recovering the sense of our personal worth.

1.  Some, perhaps many of us feel unwanted, unloved, abandoned, dispensable, a loser, someone who needs to prove themselves before others to take away a label... And we want to feel loved, wanted, worthy, worth the look, appreciated... We want a heart beating for us.

Some people and, again, perhaps many people, feel guilty or are truly conscious of having sinned and, perhaps, of having seriously sinned. They not only feel bad: they see themselves as bad people. Nobody can change what they have done. Nobody can undo the past. They would like to feel good about themselves, they would like to feel lovable, to be good, to be made good... but there is no power in the world capable of cleaning the slate.

This is why a choir of angels had to sing “Glory to God in the Highest!” on that holy night: human beings would have never expected that God would do such a thing for them. What happened on that night was so beautiful that the angels themselves were overwhelmed with joy. The Lord of Angels had come to earth to clean the slate with His own blood.

2.  In the Garden of Eden, human being had been created as the true garden where God wanted to rest. When the devil destroyed that garden with original sin, God came back to earth to make of every human heart a humble manger where He could dwell. Each human heart has been created by God because God wanted a friend. Each human heart is, for God, a beautiful tree from which He hopes to obtain a fruit of love. Each human soul has been planned, designed, dreamed by God as a true dwelling, as the place He wants to inhabit, as the abode, the shrine which He wants to fill with light, love and joy.

In simple words, this means that God created you out of pure love, because He wanted to be loved by you and thus abide in you by His own love. This is why God made you free, so that your love could be true love, a choice, your choice. This is why God offered you His divine grace in Jesus, so that you could love God as His child, as a friend. This is why God sent His Son to die on the cross for our sins, so that your heart, which was made unable to love God by sin, could be restored to God’s friendship by the sacrifice of His Son.

3.  Therefore, when you feel unwanted, remember that God wanted you to exist because He thought that you could be His manger, a beautiful garden for Him, His royal palace and His Heaven. God created you because He thought that you could be His friend. He dreamed in you someone worthy of God and created you so that you could freely fulfill His dream.

When you feel guilty, when you think you are bad and lost because of your sins, remember that the Lord came to be born on a manger for you, not for those who think they are just. “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matthew 9:13). “The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10). Let yourself be found and you will no longer be lost. He already knows where you are: turn around, look at Him and allow yourself to be found and embraced by His infinite mercy.

Nobody can change the past: this is true. Your sins will be in the past, but buried and with a huge cross on top of them (the cross of Jesus) to remind you how much you have been loved, to remind you that you have been raised from the tomb and given new life despite all those evil deeds. God created our heart good, we destroyed it by sin, but God can re-create it holy, so that we may again love Him as He desires to be loved. No sin can overpower the mercy of God, nothing can stop God’s desire to be loved. But we are free. We have to let God in.

May we realize our dignity: the Lord came from afar to be born on earth because He thought you were worth the trip. He wants your friendship, He came to offer forgiveness: He left the sacrament of Reconciliation to forgive you, and the sacrament of the Eucharist to accompany you every day of your life. Let us allow God to love us and to forgive us.