Simbang Gabi

Simbang Gabi
December 17, 2007

Introduction
I am interested to know who were here yesterday on the first day of our Novena Mass. Could you please put your hands up? Well done. Put your hands up if this is your first Dawn Mass. Good effort! Put your hands up if you think you will be here again tomorrow morning. Good luck. Put your hands up if you are still sleepy? Well, I am!

Story
Once in the Philippines there was a mother who’s been trying hard to wake up her son for Dawn Mass. As you may know Dawn Mass in most parishes in the Philippines begins as early as 3:45 am. “Come on son” says the mother, “get out of your bed today is the second Day of Novena Mass we cannot be late.” But her son wouldn’t respond and pretended to be sleeping still. The mother shouted up the stairs “Get up!,” and the son shouted back down the stairs: “No!” She shouted again: “Get up! Gising na!, and he shouted down again: “Can’t you see I’m still sleepy! Why should I get up?”

Mother said: “Well, first of all your early breakfast is ready, second we cannot afford to miss the Novena Mass, and thirdly you are the Parish Priest and for God sake you have to say Mass today! Come on people are waiting!”

Being human
Well, part of being human we have our own inadequacies and shortcomings. We have the tendency to lose motivation and sometimes we failed to be consistent in our duties. When we make mistake, a serious one or not, our classic excuse is “I am just human. I am not perfect.”

In the Gospel today on the second Day of this Dawn Mass, we heard the genealogy of Jesus, we heard many names from generation to generation and from which Jesus comes from. The names which I read from the Gospel of Matthew (with great difficulty of pronouncing correctly!), were real people, they were human like who were confronted of their own inadequacies, there were flawed, imperfect, at times unfaithful and sinful, (if they are here today they too would be sleepy at Dawn Mass).

Today’s Gospel invites us to meditate on two things: first Jesus is the new beginning of humanity and secondly, Jesus is the basis of the hope of humanity.

Jesus as the new beginning
The genealogy of Jesus show that his ancestors, great, great, great, great grandaparents, or kanunununuan are a mixture of good and bad people and most often the dominance of the latter. This is humanity to which Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah, the Saviour, is born into; this is the kind of people, God the Father is sending his very own Son to this world.

Each name mentioned in Jesus’ genealogy has its own story of human failure to tell. To mention a few we have Abraham and Isaac lie to disown their wives before authorities to save their own lives. Jacob is a trickster, stealing both the blessing (“berakah” in Hebrew) and birthright (“bekorah”) from his brother, Esau. We heard of David, supposedly greatest of Israel’s kings, is guilty of the murder of Uriah, the commander of his own army, to legitimize an adulterous affair. Then his son Solomon who is notorious for having 700 wives and 300 concubines, (how about that? He beat my grandfather who had four wives!) His leadership is not only religiously offensive; it is also marked by corruption and injustice.

There were long list of human failures among Jesus’ ancestors. The coming of Jesus is the coming the new beginning in humanity. Jesus is perfect model of being human – flawless and sinless.

Jesus' genealogy revealed that he came for the salvation of all people regardless of race, nationality or gender. His genealogy is not for history but to present us his identity, a new beginning of humanity.

Jesus is the basis of our hope and joy
Secondly we meditate today on the second day of Simbang Gabi or Dawn Mass, that Jesus is the basis of our hope. Jesus is a real person. He is not an invention of the imagination of his disciples. Like all of us, he had ancestors. But Jesus is not an ordinary person. Jesus is a descendant of David but as savior, He is human and divine.

We may have our own weaknesses, struggles and personal difficulties in life, human as we are. But the genealogy of Jesus reminds us that God can draws goodness out of human mistakes and incompetence through Jesus Christ. It gives us encouragement and assurance that if we have Jesus in our hearts God can make good things out of us.

Conclusion
As we come to prepare for Christmas, we must want Jesus and welcome Jesus in our day to day lives. Jesus is the only remedy from all our anxiety, fear and worry, and all our other human weaknesses.

Our being human is never perfect, it is not pure and its not, at the moment, a worthy offering to God. Let us allow then Jesus to be born in us to make us, in the end, a worthy offering to God, our Father.

In this second day of the Novena, let us prepare ourselves so that we too might become like Jesus, a deserving people of God. Amen.