Homily for the Solemnity of the Nativity 2025

Thursday December 25, 2025
Nativity of the Lord – Year A

Homily by Father Emmanuel Schwab

1^st reading: Isaiah 52,7-10
Psalm: 97 (98), 1, 2-3ab, 3cd-4, 5-6
2^rd reading: Hebrews 1,1-6
Gospel: John 1,1-18

"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us." 

The beginning of the Letter to the Hebrews that we have heard reminds us that God spoke to our fathersthe children of Israel, that he spoke to them by the prophets —one could also translate: he spoke to us in the prophets —, But in these last days, he has spoken to us in his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he created the universe. ». 

The very first account of creation, at the beginning of the Book of Genesis, shows us God creating the world through his word: "And God spoke, and it was so." (Genesis 1:7). Things exist through the word of God; they receive their being from the word of God. But what we celebrate today is much more: the Word became fleshThe second person of the Holy Trinity, the eternal Son of the eternal Father, the Word of God, the word of the Father, became man.

And we could summarize the mystery of Christmas in this expression that we ourselves use: I give you my word. What does God do today? He gives us his word. And we know well, when we say to someone, “I give you my word,” that we are bound as if by an oath, that the word by which we have promised something binds us, and we affirm our intention to keep our word, to do what we have announced. I give you my word… this word, you keep it in the memory of your heart, awaiting its fulfillment. And I, I am bound by this word that I also keep within me. It went out from me, it came to you, but it is still within me. When God gives us his word, God makes a definitive commitment.

And if we ask ourselves what, at its core, is this word that God gives us today, it is this word so simple, so profound, so commonplace, so extraordinary: “I love you.” The Word made flesh, Jesus, the child in the manger, the newborn laid in the feeding trough in Bethlehem, is God’s “I love you” entrusted to each of us. And just as the newborn is extremely fragile, just as its whole life depends on the love that welcomes it—for, I remind you, the human infant is, I believe, the only mammal that cannot go to the breast on its own; someone must take it and bring it to the mother, it needs another to be led to the source; extreme fragility—the word of God is also extremely fragile in the midst of humanity. The proof is that this word, this “I love you,” will be as if scorned, as if torn apart when Christ is crucified, when he is scourged, mocked. God’s “I love you” is scorned, and the resurrection of Jesus is this same word definitively renewed, indestructible: “I told you that I loved you: I love you!” It is a matter of welcoming this word.

Let's listen to Thérèse in a letter to Céline dated July 7, 1894:

Jesus had promised this long ago when he was about to ascend to his Father and our Father; he said with ineffable tenderness: “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” Keeping the word of Jesus is the sole condition of our happiness, the proof of our love for him. But what is this word?… It seems to me that the word of Jesus is himself… Jesus, the Word, the Word of God!… He tells us this later in the same Gospel of St. John, praying to his Father for his disciples. He expresses himself thus: “Sanctify them by your word; your word is truth.” In another place, Jesus teaches us that he is the way, the truth, and the life. We therefore know which Word we must keep; like Pilate, we will not ask Jesus: “What is Truth?” We possess it, the Truth. We keep Jesus in our hearts!… (LT 165)

Well, yes, brothers and sisters, in celebrating the mystery of the Nativity, the mystery of the Word made flesh, of the word of God made man, we must enter into the coherence of what we celebrate and welcome the Lord by faith — for it is by faith that he comes to dwell in our hearts — but also welcome him through the Holy Scriptures… Take the time, in our sometimes very busy lives, take the time to read, to meditate on the Holy Scriptures so that the word of God may resound in our hearts. 

Sometimes we hear people praying and saying, "I speak, but God doesn't answer me." Yes, but if you say that, you're reversing the dialogue: it's not you who speaks first, it's God who speaks first. He spoke in His Creation, since it is His word that creates the world, and the world tells us something about God, about His benevolent goodness. But He also speaks through the prophets. He speaks through the Holy Scriptures, which the people of Israel carefully preserved and which the Church, following their example, preserves, adding to them the writings of the New Covenant. It is God who speaks first… How do I take the time to welcome this word of God, which became Scripture, so that I can truly welcome the person of Jesus? And by welcoming the word of God, this word will take flesh within me. It is about the Word becoming flesh in my life too, about the word of God transforming my life in such a way that it becomes visible to my contemporaries, that by seeing me live, they see the word of God, that by associating with me, they see the love of God at work, not by my speeches, but by my way of living, my way of loving.

The Prologue of Saint John ends, as you know, with this statement: “No one has ever seen God; the only begotten Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, he has made him known.”

But through our baptism, we are associated with the mystery of the Son. We become, by adoption, sons in the Son so that in our own lives, remaining turned towards the bosom of the Father, we may make known the merciful, benevolent paternal love of the Father to those around us and that our way of living, our way of loving, may be the fruit of the word of God in us which takes flesh, so that we ourselves become a word of God for the world. 

This is the great mystery of Christmas: God has called you to be, through Jesus, with Him and in Him, a word of goodness for the world in which you live.

Amen