For the last two days I’ve been trying to imagine what our world would be like had Jesus never been born. It’s easy to say that The Church would not exist or that we would have no Pope. There would be no priests, deacons, religious sisters or brothers, nor there would be church buildings. But Christianity has permeated our culture to such degree that it’s really impossible to envision a world that is not influenced by Jesus and his life.
Imagine a singer, Madonna Louise Ciccone. Had Jesus never been born, her parents would not have named her Madonna. In fact, had Jesus not been born, there would be no references to Mary in our culture. There wouldn’t be a song by the Beatles called Let It Be, nor there be other songs such as Virgin Mary by Joan Baez, or Lady Writer by Dire Straits to mention a few.
In fact, the name Mary wouldn’t be a popular name. Nor would be Joseph, or Peter, John, or James. Had Jesus never been born, you wouldn’t have any friends named Elizabeth, Madelaine or Veronica. You wouldn’t have any friends named Gloria, Christian or Christina. Imagine a Latin America without the thousands of men born on December 25th named Jesús, or anyone named José María, or Marie-Josée. I guess they would still exist but their names would be Quetzalcoatl, Yupanqui, Eithinoha or Summer.
Yesterday I was imagining a world without Christmas. That would mean no Christmas music and no Christmas movies. But a world without Jesus would mean much more to our popular culture. I also just came from watching the screen adaptation of Les Miserables (isn’t Anne Hathaway fabulous as Fantine?). I couldn’t help but thinking that this novel would be very different had Jesus not been born. Perhaps Victor Hugo never would have written it. If so, there wouldn’t be a musical called Les Mis, and this movie would not have been made. And all those wonderful songs would not exist. But had Jesus not been born, there would be many other songs missing from your playlist:
Personal Jesus by Depeche Mode; Hey Jesus by the Indigo Girls; God is Love by Lenny Kravitz; Forgiven by Alanis Morisette; Sympathy for the Devil by the Rolling Stones; One of Us by Joan Osbourne; God or Imagine by John Lennon; I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For by U2; Jesus by Queen. That’s just off the top of my head.
Had Jesus never been born, we would also be missing a lot of great (and not so great) films from our video libraries:
There would be no Jesus Christ Super Star, No Godspell, No Jesus of Nazareth, The Passion of the Christ, The Last Temptation, The Nativity Story, The Life of Brian, Ben Hur, The King of Kings, Salome, The Robe, Barabbas, The Greatest Story Ever Told, The Gospel According to St. Matthew, Jesus of Montreal, Mary, the Mother of Jesus, Jesus (the mini-series) or The Miracle Maker.
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While I dislike having to listen to Christmas music as early as November 25th, I do like that once a year radio stations all over don’t seem to have a problem playing music that mentions the name of Jesus or that glorifies God.
This year, listening to Christmas music early in December I found myself thinking what it would be like if there was no Christmas. I have a Cuban friend who grew up in Cuba with no Christmas. She had never seen or heard of a Christmas tree. But had Christ never been born, the implications would be much worse than not having Christmas trees. Just think of the music we’d be missing!
Other than all the obvious religious Christmas songs that would not exist: O Come Emmanuel; Coventry Carol; Oh Little Town of Bethlehem; What Child is This?; Silent Night; Away In A Manger ; The First Noel; It Came Upon a Midnight Clear; O Holy Night; Twelve Days Of Christmas; Hark! The Herald Angels Sing; Angels We Have Heard on High; Joy to the World; Here We Come A-Wassailing; Mary, Did You Know; the Carol of the Bells or We Three Kings, we also would not have these timeless Christmas recordings:
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My homily for the 1st Sunday, Advent C
Jeremiah 33:14-16
Thessalonians 3:12-4:2
Luke 21:25-28, 34-36
If you’re asking “what’s up with all these readings about doom and destruction?” and, “didn’t we just hear this Gospel two weeks ago?” I’m glad you asked…
The prophet Jeremiah spent all his life telling the people of Israel that there was going to be doom and destruction if they didn’t change their ways. That’s not a popular message. Imagine if Obama instead of running his campaign on the promise of hope, had run it on a message of doom and destruction: “if you don’t shape up and stop spending money you don’t have, you’re going to lose your homes and the market is going to crash!” Not a popular message. Jeremiah didn’t want to proclaim it but those were the words that came out of his mouth. And the people of Israel did not listen and things were pretty disastrous. The Kingdom was again divided: The kingdom had been united under King David and it was still united under his son, Solomon, but after Solomon, it was a free-for-all. If you like TV shows like Camelot or HBO’s Rome, you should read the books of Kings and Chronicles. It was all power grabs and jealousies and murders and war, even among families. And so the Kingdom was again divided. There was the northern Kingdom of Israel, where Samaria is and the southern Kingdom of Judah, where Jerusalem is. And no one was following God’s commandments; in fact God’s commandments are completely forgotten. And to top it off, the Assyrians invade, take over the land, destroy the temple and exile everyone to Babylon. First the kingdom of Israel falls, and then the kingdom of Judah.
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