The Seventh Station, Bethlehem, House of Bread. Oh, sacrament most holy, oh, sacrament divine, all praise and all thanksgiving be every moment thine.

In the opening chapters of Matthew's gospel and in the opening chapters of St. Luke's gospel, we hear about the incarnation and the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Praise God for that. Praise God for every Christmas that you have ever celebrated. And thanks be to God for every Christmas that we will have the opportunity to meditate and think about this mind-boggling theological idea that God became flesh and dwelt among us. Jesus is the Savior of the whole world. He could have been born anywhere. He could have been born in Rome, Jerusalem, Constantinople. He could have been born anywhere, and yet God ordains it through a prophecy of Malachi that the Savior of the world would be born in Bethlehem. The word Bethlehem means house of bread. Lehem means bread. Beth, house of. Jesus was born in the town called Bethlehem because He, Himself, is the living bread that has come down from heaven. That night that He was born, angels appear to shepherds. These aren't just ordinary shepherds, by the way. These are shepherds that are near Bethlehem, which is five miles away from the temple in Jerusalem. The temple was not just a building. The temple was an active place of prayer and worship.

And when we say worship, we mean the death of animals. Jewish worship meant the slaughtering of lambs, not just at the Passover. But daily lambs were being slaughtered. And thus, these Bethlehem shepherds were actually part of an industry to provide lambs for the temple. And they had to be unblemished lambs, lambs that didn't have broken legs or spots on them, and they were judged worthy by the Levitical priests to be worthy of a sacrifice. So when an angel appears to these shepherds that are in an industry that's providing lambs to be slaughtered, and they go to a manger and see the Savior of the world, they realize in many ways that what they hold in their arms is nothing compared to who lays in that manger. The tiny little lambs that will be slaughtered in the temple, they actually don't take away sins. They don't liberate and free the Jewish people. And that's why He was born. And that's why He, who will become the Good Shepherd, will be the One who lays down His life for His sheep, you and me. In Matthew's gospel, we hear about the magi who come from the east, and they offer gifts of gold. Gold for who? Gold for a king. Frankincense. Frankincense for God because Jesus is a king. He's also God himself. And the gift of myrrh, why? Because he's going to die. This child is born to die for you and for me. So much happens in Bethlehem. The house of bread. One of the most moving parts of the infancy narratives for me is this image of the Magi who used science. They used astrology to make their way to the birth of the Savior of the world. So often we hear from our college students and from our young adults and from our high school students that the number one reason that they don't believe in the faith anymore is they somehow say that science and faith contradict each other and it's just not true. And the Magi are a great reminder to us the fact that science actually leads us to the mystery. And what do these Magi do? What do these scientists do? What do these astrologers do when they make their way? Well, they open up their treasures and offer gifts of golden frankincense and myrrh, but what do they actually do? It says that they prostrated themselves. They didn't just bow.

They didn't just take a knee. They laid face down in awe, in reverence, in adoration of the Savior of the world. It's powerful. It's moving. How do you reverence the Savior of the world? How do you reverence the word made flesh? We make the sign of the cross. We make crosses on our forehead, on our lips, and on our hearts, and we bow and we stand and we sit. We also kneel and we genuflect. I want to encourage you to be very aware of your bodily gestures when you pray. I remember as a young boy, my dad teaching me how to give a handshake. I remember my mom telling me that when I talked to somebody, I needed to look them in the eye. What we do with our body matters. It matters in our relationships with other human beings, but it also matters in our relationship with the Lord. It's a way that we communicate and show our attentiveness and awareness. Just as those Magi prostrated themselves, just as those shepherds went in haste and visited the Savior of the world, we're called to worship with our bodies. Be attentive to how you worship with your bodies. The next time you go into a church, don't just genuflect and scoot into the pew. Take the time to reverence the Word made flesh. When you come forward in the communion procession, be attentive to what am I doing with my body? What am I saying about who I am about to receive and my response to that? God gave us a body. Let's use it to worship Him here on earth and one day with our bodies at the Second Coming in the glories of heaven to come. Amen.

The Eighth Station of the Eucharist, John the Baptist points to Jesus, the Lamb of God. O Sacrament as holy, O Sacrament divine, all praise and all Thanksgiving be every moment vine.

So this is the moment. This is the moment where everything is going to begin to make a lot of sense. John the Baptist is the cousin of Jesus. He is at the River Jordan and the scripture says that all of Judea came to the Jordan to see John. Everyone is there. And when we say that everyone, we're talking about Jewish people. We're talking about people that are faithful to the law, religious people that know the scriptures. And as they are there in the water, John the Baptist points to his cousin. Now, John the Baptist could have introduced Jesus to the whole world with any title. He could have said, "There's the king of kings, there's the Lord of Lords, there's the Messiah." He could have said anything. Take a moment and just think what title would you have used to announce Jesus to the whole world? To be honest, I most likely would have said, "Look, there's my cousin." That's not what John the Baptist does. He uses one phrase, one title, and it brings everything together. He says, "Behold the Lamb of God." Those are words that are pretty familiar to us. And in fact, as a priest, I say them every day, sometimes three times a day. As I hold what looks like to the world to just be bred. And yet I hold in these very hands when I say, "Behold the lamb of God. Behold Him who takes away the sins of the world." Those words are the words that introduce us to holy communion. When we come forward to receive our resurrected Lord, body, blood, soul, and divinity, the words of John the Baptist from the River Jordan that fulfill every Old Testament prophecy are spoken clearly and beautifully to you and to me, to come forward from our baptism, to come forward from the riverbank, and to receive the one who sets us free. Behold the Lamb of God. Now, if you're a faithful Jew and you are in that crowd, you know exactly what John is saying. And it seems unreal. John the Baptist, by you saying that that's the Lamb of God, that Jesus is the Lamb of God, you're saying He's the perfect sacrifice of Abel, the unblemished, perfect offering. You're saying that He's the replacement sacrifice of Abraham. You're saying He's the Passover lamb of Exodus. And we have to eat His flesh and His blood will be separated from His body, and His blood will redeem us. You're saying He's like every Lamb that we have offered every day at the temple, generation after generation John, you're crazy. He's not a lamb. You're saying he's perfect. He looks like a human being to me. You're saying that he's going to die in my place, and you're saying that I have to eat his flesh and drink his blood? John, you're nuts. We want to know what? They thought John was nuts, but he wasn't nuts. And everything that John said is actually what we believe as Christians, that Jesus is the only begotten Son of the Father, that He is true God and true man. We believe that He did die in our place and that His death 2000 years ago is our only hope. And we do believe that we are called to eat his flesh and drink his blood. And if we do that, it gives us eternal life. John the Baptist got it right. And every Old Testament prophecy comes alive. And every faithful Jew standing on those riverbanks would have known exactly what John was saying.

And John had courage, John had conviction, John had certitude in what he believed and in what he said. And we're called to have the same. I will tell you one thing that helps me to have certitude and courage in my spiritual life is having a regular routine of prayer. I have in my prayer book, the prayer book that I pray out of every day, called The Liturgy of the Hours or The Office of Readings of the Breviary, has many titles, but if you open up my breviary, I have a Post-it note, and I write down my non-negotiables. They're my spiritual non-negotiables. They're the things that I'm not going to go to bed without having done every day. It's my spiritual bare minimums. It's great if I can do more, but these are my non-negotiables. What's your spiritual routine? What's your habit of prayer? I want to encourage you today to write it down. Writing things down and visually seeing them every day is a tremendous habit that brings growth, change, and maturity. What's your spiritual plan? What's your spiritual regimen? What have you committed to? Every relationship is about a commitment. Every relationship has written or spoken obligations that we hold ourselves to, every relationship. The same is true with our relationship with the Lord.

So what are you committing to? John the Baptist was bold. He had absolute assurance and certitude in who Christ was and his relationship with Him. I want to encourage you to do the same. I want to encourage you to write down your plan of life and to commit to it. Jesus is the Lamb of God. He is the fulfillment of every Old Testament prophecy. And He's our Savior. Let's commit to have spiritual lives which make that the center of who we are. Amen.