A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Matthew. After the Magi had left, the angel of the lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph with this command, get up, take the child and his mother, and flee into Egypt. Now this is taking place in Bethlehem, and they didn't have an they didn't have many seven forty sevens running around in those days. So here's a Joseph has a dream, and in this dream, somebody tells him to get up and take a a woman who's been who had just recently become a mother, take a tiny newborn baby and take off for Egypt from Bethlehem. And then this messenger continued, and stay in Egypt until I tell you otherwise.
Herod is searching for the child to destroy him. Joseph got up at once and took the child and his mother and left that night for Egypt. He stayed there until the death of Herod to fulfill what the lord had said through the prophet, out of Egypt, I shall call my son. Once Herod realized that he had been deceived by the astrologers, Herod became furious. He ordered a massacre of all the boys, two years old and under, in Bethlehem and in the neighborhood, making his calculations on the bases of the date he had learned from the astrologers.
What was said through Jeremiah the prophet was then fulfilled. A cry was heard at Rama, sobbing and loud lamentation. Rachel, bewailing her children. No comfort to her since they are no more. And this is the gospel, the good news of the lord.
In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. Well, folks, the way we interpret good news is enough to make any sensible person stagger. We're here. We have a midnight mass, and everybody is all enthusiastic about Christmas and all. They don't in many instances, they don't know precisely what they're enthusiastic about it, but it's a time of great joy, excitement, intensity, and don't underrate it.
What I'm saying is not sarcasm. It's the truth. You can't avoid being part of it. Then we have the high mass or the midnight mass, and we have a number of masses on Christmas day, and, people wind up evening of the twenty fifth pretty tired and weary after a long long time. And then comes what?
After all this joy and glory and hallelujahs and peace to men of goodwill and all the singing and the hymns and the carols and the joys and the drinking and the eating and the laughter and the opening of packages and all of this, what do we have? The feast of Stephen Marker. Stephen Marker. Right away, the twenty sixth. And now today, we have the feast of the holy innocents.
A great we don't know how many there were. There weren't too many, really, but there was a a number of children, male children, who were slaughtered by Herod. Of course, it was completely illegal. And here today is just the twenty eighth. What's the church trying to tell us with this?
Well, whatever she's trying to tell us, many people don't get the message at all. They don't. Right now, and I'm quoting, that you'd some people think that the very essence of the church of Jesus Christ is what they call community, community, liberation from oppression, identity with the poor, successful revolution. These are the things which are held up. These are the things which are are are supposed to be represent Jesus Christ.
Where do we talk about peace? And our in almost every instance, we're talking about the absence of war, the absence of conflict, where where we have a a great measure of tranquility, lack of commotion, a lack of opposition, lack of confrontation. This is what most people mean by peace. And none of this, of course, is the way it is. We we we talk about Christianity, and one of the things we want is what they call a tearless, a painless Christianity.
We want a Christianity without dogma. Now notice what's behind that. This ties in with what I said yesterday in Saint John's plea for truth. If if you have a Christianity where dogma does you see, if you have Christianity where there's a dogma, was the blessed mother, the mother of Christ, was she a virgin or wasn't she a virgin? Is the emanatic conception true or is it false?
If you have to take a stand, then you immediately take a stand against those who who differ with you. And that, of course, is divisive, and we mustn't be divisive. We we have to be ecumenical. We have to be together, together, this community. Now this is the way things are today.
I'm not exaggerating at all. Is this the way Christ have we any reason to think this is what Christ had in mind when he came on Earth and established his church? There's not the slightest basis in in the life of Jesus Christ or in his message to to to suggest this. Christ said my kingdom is not of this world. And yet we have today Christian Marxism, so called Christian Marxism.
And we have Christians who are being Marxist and are failing to be Christians. Today, are horrified. We think of Herod going around, you know, and all these innocent little babies being slaughtered, and some some artists have drawn pretty graphic pictures of these babies being slaughtered too. Have you ever thought today of in our of our lord, nineteen hundred and eighty two, December the twenty eighth in Garrett Park, that in The United States Of America, it is estimated, and these are pretty these are minimal figures. These are minimal figures that there are about a million and a half abortions.
You talk about the slaughter of the young of the infants. And these figures I got not from any Catholic or theologian or anybody like that. These are these are are public figures. About half of all conceptions are being aborted. That's in The United States Of America in 1982.
So what kind of a world are we living in? What is the message? The church is trying to give us a message. Just yesterday I heard of a young a relatively young couple, one of whom has cancer and the prognosis is no good. He's like he's going to die.
And I understand that they together came to make arrangements for their for the funeral and whatever follows. You'd say, gee, this is awful right after Christmas. Well, let me tell you, the church has Saint Stephen on the December 26. You see, take going back to that sixty minute program on Sunday night where the great argument was we must do everything possible to preserve life. That was imprint.
Everything possible to preserve life. Yet we're we're murdering a million and a half unborn children. Yet the great cry, do everything to preserve life. Look look at all this is being done in with the artificial heart. No.
I'm not against that. Don't under misunderstand me. But I'm saying the way we hang on to life and where the message of Jesus Christ is just the opposite. If you wanna keep your life, you have to lose it for my sake, said Jesus. Notice, you talk about arrogance.
If you can think of anything more arrogant than that, I'd like to hear it. And yet Jesus said it, and it makes absolute nonsense and or worse if he is not god. So today, the church is giving us a message. For heaven's sakes, folks, the church is saying, look. Get look at the life into the eyes of Jesus Christ.
You have a savior. There's a text that was read out in the in the first reading this morning that where where where there is god or something like this, there is perfect light or no darkness, and that is absolutely true. Absolutely true. Because if there's anything that brings darkness to a human being, it's the thought of death. And yet our blessed lord came to defeat death.
Not to remove it, we're all going to die, but to take away from us the horror of it, the fatality of it, the tragedy of it, and to tell us that if you're that we that if you wanna see it through my eyes, then you you glorify, you sing your hallelujahs, not on the day of the natural birth, but on the day of the birth of that person into the kingdom of God, and you do it through the door of death. In the name of the father, and of the son, and holy spirit. Amen.