Christmas Eve Homily Salvation: God Embraces our humanity

Salvation is the freedom and the capacity to live life fully.
And as Jesus revealed, and thus we believe as Catholics, living life in the full is about loving others and letting ourselves be loved.
Salvation is to love and let ourselves be loved.  
God’s will is that we love and be loved by one another.
For this, the Son of God was born and lived as Human, died and was resurrected.
So that we humans would be freed for love
Remember Love, as Jesus revealed is to willingly give of ourselves for the good of others and to let others give of themselves willingly for our good.
This is the joy of Christianity.
What we especially celebrate these days at Christmas is not simply that the Son of God was born as human, but think of it in this way:  That God embraced humanity!  The Incarnation is The Divine fully and wholly embracing our humanity.
Jesus embraced all of our humanity; the good and the not so good.
This is powerful stuff.  Because if God embraces our humanity, that means we can embrace our own humanity and that of others.  
This frees us to to love.  This is salvation!
Think for a moment of an embrace you have received that was the best.  
Maybe it was from a parent; maybe from your child, maybe it was from the person whom you fell in love with.  That best friend who was there for you.
Didn’t it seem that the universe was a safe place?
Didn’t it seem wonderful that there was at least one person who loved you; and it was okay.
Think of the embrace that you gave that was the best.  The first time you held your child, your grandchild; your first love, the friend who was in need.
Didn’t it seem as if we wanted to protect that person, to let them know they are loved; to let them know “I am here for you!” "I trust you."
God embraces our humanity.
God says to us:  we are good, we are loved, we are safe.  I am here for you.  
God embraces our total humanity;  those parts of us that work well, we give thanks for them and use them for the good of others.
Those that are not so good, we show to God and say, please help me!
See, God is not there to shame us for those parts that are not perfect.  God is not there, holding off until we improve ourselves.
What Jesus reveals is that God’s love is present always, to transform our lives, to perfect what needs perfection so that we can be free to love others and let ourselves be loved.
So we embrace our hurt, our anger, our sadness, our fears, our loneliness, our addictions, our egotism...all of it, all of which hurts our relationships with others, all of which keeps us from loving others and letting ourselves be loved;  and we offer it to the Divine Grace.
God’s grace works with our nature, and we are strengthened; strengthened to forgive, to trust, to hope, to see beyond the addictions to the true higher power, to be humble.  
This is our sacramental sign of Eucharist.  
The bread and wine are the signs of ourselves.  Offered to God, and God embraces them, blesses them and transforms them.
The bread and wine become the body and blood of Jesus Christ, human and divine.  Given back to us, for us to embrace and let ourselves be transformed.
Our Gospel further strengthens this...this list of people, humans, the family of Jesus Christ….  The fulfillment of that family is Christ.
We can become divine, capable of so much love; giving and receiving.
We can be saved, truly free.  

God has embraced our humanity; will we and be free?

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