Sermon from Christmas Solemn Chapter
Today, on this last day of the Christmas season, we share with you Sr. Mary Martin’s sermon from Christmas Solemn Chapter. Solemn Chapter takes place twice a year: on the vigil of the Solemnity of the Annunciation and on the vigil of Christmas. The Christmas Chapter begins with the chantress singing the Christmas martyrology announcing the birth of Christ. Then, the Sisters make the venia (Dominican prostration). The ceremony concludes with a sermon by the Prioress or another Sister appointed by her.
My dear Sisters,
Once again this year we have solemnly proclaimed that the Word of God, at a particular moment in time and a particular place in history, took on a human nature and became one of us, just like us in everything but sin. The Church has celebrated this event ever since and theologians have contemplated it and written about it in every age. But what does it mean for us, here and now today?
In a day and age when sophisticated intellectuals, even within the Church, don’t believe that God really became human, or could really do so, the fact of his actually having done so means everything to us. We nuns of the Order of Preachers especially have staked our lives on the actuality, the particularity, the reality of the Word become flesh. As the Fathers of the Church affirmed many times over, what was not assumed was not saved.
Sister Maria Rose sings the proclamation of Christ’s birth
If our flesh was not assumed by the divine Word, we would have no hope of resurrection and eternal life. Why would we deny ourselves so many good things now if we had nothing to look forward to? If our soul was not assumed, we would have no hope of knowing God intimately or of loving him, still less of living a theological life, participating in the Trinity itself. Yet we have committed ourselves to doing just this. If our emotions were not assumed, what validity or purpose could they have in the plan of salvation? We might as well cut them off altogether, as the Stoics advocated. If the Son of God had not lived as a particular human being in a definite country at a historically verifiable time, our own human circumstances here in Summit, New Jersey in 2021 would be meaningless.
We can also look at it the other way around. What does it mean for us that the man Jesus of Nazareth who walked the earth 2000 years ago was actually God? If he were not, his suffering and death would be no different than that of any other good person, his teaching would be no more authoritative than that of any other prophet, his example no more compelling than that of Buddha. Even if he had truly risen from the dead, his resurrection would be that of one person only, not communicable to any other human being. The sacraments would be merely symbolic gestures, the Church just another human institution, even if one favored by God as the Jewish people were. How could we love as a living reality one who is not present to us and loving us at every moment?
Perhaps for us, that is the most wonderful thing of all about the Incarnation. God, whose Son came in time and space and lived among us, has come to each of us in Baptism and Confirmation. He comes to each of us daily in the Eucharist. He lives within us, each of us, all the time. We don’t have to wait for him to come again or think of him as coming. He is here with us, now. And some day he will come again in glory for everyone.
A few minutes ago, we fell prostrate on the floor in adoration and thanksgiving for God’s infinite generosity to us in the Incarnation. Those of us who can’t physically prostrate did so in our hearts. Because the Incarnation is an unspeakable and incomprehensible and wonderful mystery, all the more must we speak it and try to comprehend it and wonder at it. After all, we are Dominicans! May our hearts be filled with wonder and praise, today and every day of our lives.
