The Holy Week Retreat - Bethlehem: House of Bread - Station 7

Experience the ultimate Holy Week Retreat!

Join Fr. Jonathan Meyer (and Catholics across America!) on an epic journey through the Stations of the Eucharist. This incredible retreat will guide you through fourteen stations from Genesis to Revelation that will reshape the way you see the rest of your life. Get ready to break open the Scriptures, immerse yourself in the story of salvation history, and consider the sacrifice of Jesus Christ like never before. 

This year’s Holy Week Retreat is simple to follow. Each day, you’ll receive two reflections that will help you meditate on two of the fourteen stations. You can watch them both together, or space them out as morning and evening reflections. We’ll cover all fourteen stations by Holy Saturday so you can have the best Easter of your life!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:27

The seventh station, Bethlehem, House of Bread. O sacrament holy, O sacrament divine, all praise and all thanksgiving be every moment thine. 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. Beth, house of. Jesus was born in the town called Bethlehem because he himself is the living bread that has come down from heaven. At 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 that 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 gold and 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 in one day with our bodies at the second coming in the glories of heaven to come. Amen.