I would like to speak to the children gathered here tonight, because I know how hard it is sometimes to understand what we just read, with all the different words that you may or may not have heard before and also to help you understand why it is this night is so important and special.

I have here a handful of hay, which is nothing more than a handful of dried out grass, and it has one purpose, to feed the animals in a barn or a stable, however, in order to feed the animals, it would have to be put in a special container called a trough, I don’t know if any of you have seen a trough, but it is right here. And it really wouldn’t be important except for one reason, one of the types of troughs is called a manger. So, when we hear about Jesus lying in a manger, as we just did, it means His bed was a container from where animals would eat and this was his mattress.

Yet, there is something else, He was born in a town, a special town called Bethlehem, a word in Hebrew, one of the languages they spoke back then, which means “house of bread.” So, then Jesus was laid in a manger in a town called Bethlehem.

This means that Jesus wants to feed us and that, in fact, He was born in order to feed us, feeding us first with His Word, which we just heard and then again with the Eucharist, the true bread from Heaven. So that this Jesus who is born on Christmas is the same Jesus in the Eucharist that we celebrate tonight, what that means is that when your parents drag you out of bed, telling you have to come to Mass, it is because Jesus is there waiting, wanting to feed you and wanting you to be fed.

Because even when we put away our nativity scenes, when we put away our plastic and ceramic baby Jesus, we cannot take Him away, He wants to continue feeding us the whole year round.

Now, I want to talk to the parents.

I am sure, everyone here has flown on an airplane, at least once, and, if so, you will recall the whole lengthy process that they go through about the proper usage of an oxygen mask. There is something during that which they say that is very interesting, they tell you to make sure you put on your own mask before helping others, the Eucharist asks for the same. For, we cannot breathe without oxygen and we cannot have life within us without Christ, for, if we are not fed we cannot feed and if we are not full we will never have enough to give to others.

When Christ was born He not only brought Heaven to earth, He raised up earth to Heaven, a great Father of the Church, St. Athanasius explained it as “God becoming man and man becoming God.” For, indeed, that is the true mystery and beauty of the Incarnation and the reality of what happens every time we come to receive the Eucharist.

And, that is why we are here tonight and what all of us celebrate, because, with the shepherds before us, we cannot help but fall down in adoration and praise and with all angels and archangels sing that triumphant song: “Glory to God in the highest and peace to His people on earth,” because “today in the city of David a savior, our savior, has been born, who is Christ the Lord, the Prince of Peace, our God, our Eucharist, our hope!