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In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, Fr. Gregory asked me to say a few words to you today. I will try to brief, since it takes me a bit of effort to translate.

I'd like to say something about what it means to be human. In Latin, the root word for human is humus. It is also the root of the Latin word for earth. From this same root is derived the word, humilitas: someone who is grounded, near to the earth. So, quite literally, to be human is to be humble.

The last verse from today's Gospel reading says:

"And he went and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, He shall be called a Nazarene". (Matthew 2:23)

The town of Nazareth was despised. In the time of Christ, to come from Nazareth meant to be a pariah, to be humiliated, to be an outcast.

Why would the King of Glory deign to be humbled so low?

I would like to explore the why by reading part of an essay written by an American farmer and poet named Wendell Berry. In his 1988 essay called “The Work of Local Culture”, he says this:

For many years my walks have taken me down an old fence-row in a wooded hollow on what was once my grandfather's farm. A battered galvanized bucket is hanging on a fence post near the head of the hollow, and I never go by it without stopping to look inside. For what is going on in that bucket is the most momentous thing I know, the greatest miracle that I have ever heard of: it is making earth.

The old bucket has hung there through many autumns, and the leaves have fallen around it and some have fallen into it. Rain and snow have fallen into it, and the fallen leaves have held the moisture and so have rotted. Nuts have fallen into it, or been carried into it by squirrels; mice and squirrels have eaten the meat of the nuts and left the shells; they and other animals have left their droppings; insects have flown into the bucket and died and decayed; birds have scratched in it and left their droppings or perhaps a feather or two.

This slow work of growth and death, gravity and decay, which is the chief work of the world, has by now produced in the bottom of the bucket several inches of black humus.

I look into that bucket with fascination because I am a farmer of sorts and an artist of sorts, and I recognize there an artistry and a farming far superior to mine, or to that of any human.

l have seen the same process at work on the tops of boulders in a forest, and it has been at work immemorially over most of the land-surface of the world. All creatures die into it, and they live by it.

A human community, too, must collect it leaves. It must build its soil.

Brothers and Sisters... our Lord Jesus Christ, the King of Heaven and Earth made himself a Nazarene in order to show us how to build this soil, this earth. He became a Nazarene in order to show us how to collect the rain of our tears and the leaves of our struggles.

Many people have come and gone from this mission. Some, like good squirrels have come and left behind their blessing. Some, like good insects, have come and sacrificed their own bodies and souls. Others, like little mice, have only come and left their droppings and said: Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Can anything good come out of San Germán?...

But even though this mission is still small, it won't always be that way, because once the humus, the humilita of our souls has accumulated, there will be a growth. Because our Lord became a Nazarene, he became dirt, so that we could put our roots in Him, the true humus, and grow.

Many centuries before our Lord was born, the prophet Isaiah uttered this prophecy:

There shall come fort a Rod from the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots. The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord...

... He shall not judge by the sight of His eyes, nor decide by the hearing of His ears; but with righteousness He shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the humble of the earth. (Isaiah 11:1-4)

Through the prayers of our holy fathers, Lord Jesus Christ, our God, have mercy on us. Amen.