Dear Sisters and Brothers,
When we celebrate people's anniversaries or birthdays, we celebrate the person who is with us now more than the person who was born 40, 50, 60 or 80 years ago. We bring good wishes, speeches, some gifts to the celebration and celebrate our connection that we have now in the present with that person or institution. I was touched by the homily of Abbot Primate in Conception during the celebration of the 150. Jubilee of the Abbey, when he started with a quote of Psalm 96:
“Sing a new song to the Lord”
Even that is a verse we sing all the times during prayer times, week be week, year by year. And now already for more than 2500 years since the Psalms were written. We celebrate Christmas: New life, God becomes a baby, becomes new.
“A child has been born to us,” we heard tonight.
We know this in our families: we are happy about children. They bring something new into our lives. Generation after generation pass on the life they received from God in the beginning. In the family, in society, we prepare for this new life a home and protect it. We don't have to do anything for that. It's only natural that we look after the children. And in doing so, we are responsible for the new life. Old and new comes together; parents and children, one generation to the next.
As you remember I was as well very touched by a speech of Pope Paul VI 1970 on the feast day of our Lady of Guadalupe: He said in 1970: “Christians can do no less than to show solidarity in seeking a solution to the situation of those to whom the bread of culture has not yet come nor the opportunity of honorable and justly remunerated work. They cannot remain indifferent while new generations find no path for the realization of their legitimate aspirations, and while part of humanity continues to be placed at the margins of the advantages of civilization and progress.” “While new generations find no path for the realization of their legitimate aspirations…” In 1970 the new generations are us! We who are sitting here. And the words are still up to date. New and old come together. And Pope Francis writes about this responsibility in his encyclical Laudato Si, in which he writes about our responsibility to creation:
“First, we have a personal responsibility to respect others and our natural environment, i.e. our personal responsibility cannot be separated from our social responsibility. In other words, our duties towards others are not just up to us, because - in the understanding of Laudato-Si “everything is a gift, that we did not create ourselves nor nature, that we ourselves do not have the final word, that everything is not simply our property that we can use for ourselves alone or according to our wishes alone (LS, 6)”. Corporate social responsibility thus entails a duty to ensure that the corporate strategy and the cooperation with all stakeholders contribute to human and environmental flourishing “in line with God’s original gift of all that is” (LS, 5). As Laudato Si explains, this starts with respecting first and foremost the fundamental dignity of all human persons, and also, as the encyclical emphasizes, very much includes respecting the worth of all other creatures and all of creation as well.”
For more than 2000 years Jewish people and then Christians sang that “new song to the Lord”. Generations after generations sang this song. As a new generation thinking of the next generation of their children, may be standing next to them while singing, who came after them. And those children did in the same way as their parents did. One generation with the same new song, generation after generation.
More than 50 years ago Pope Paul VI said: “They cannot remain indifferent while new generations find no path for the realization of their legitimate aspirations.” This new generation the Pope is talking about is us! We are this new generation 50 years ago! Everyone can count how old he was: May be 5, 10, 15, 20, or 30? Young people, and now we are 60, 70, 80 years old.
Our heart remains the same. Sometimes together with our body our mood is getting older. But we should not lose hope. First of all: Stay spiritually young and positive! You have still that young heart, the same heart you had 50 years ago. As children, we still had the world in front of us. We had plans for our lives. And our parents supported us in some of our ideas to realize those plans.
Now it's up to us to support the plans of the next generation that follows us. This is a mission that is given to us at Christmas. Old and new come together. Old people, young people, old ideas, new ideas. God becomes new, he becomes new again and again. And so, God is a God who creates new life, even in those who think they are old and exhausted
"Sing to the Lord a new song." Again and again this old song, so that life goes on and generations after us have a world where life is worth to live.
Amen.
~Prior, Fr. Anastasius Reiser, OSB