We celebrate midnight Mass on Christmas night because we, as Catholics, just cannot wait till morning, we cannot hold back our desire to tell the world what we have heard throughout our readings tonight: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; For a child is born to us, a son is given us; upon his shoulder dominion rests (Isaiah).” Good news! “Today is born our Savior, Christ the Lord (Responsorial Psalm).” Good news! The grace of God has appeared, saving all … the appearance of the glory of our great God and savior Jesus Christ (2 Timothy).” Good news! “For behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Christ and Lord (Luke).” Good news!
Can anyone blame us for not wanting to wait till morning to share this “Good News?” It is simply human nature … the nature that God assumed at the incarnation when “the Word became flesh” and by his birth in Bethlehem. The story of Jesus’ Nativity is such a marvelous and miraculous one. In his birth, Jesus — Son of God and Son of Mary — brings together divinity and humanity in such a way that it can never be separated again. What joy for all of us! And, yet, the story is not new … it is 2000 years old! But it always seems new, fresh, alive. Our responsorial psalm tells us tonight: “Announce his salvation, day after day. Tell his glory among the nations; among all peoples, his wondrous deeds.”
I have been thinking about this homily all week, especially when I was able to steal some quiet moments for myself. Sometimes, when you’re all alone, you hear things differently, more clearly than when you’re surrounded by others in a crowded room, in a class, in an office where the phone keeps ringing and people file in and out. Or on a busy street, a crowded train or bus, sitting in traffic that doesn’t seem to move. Sometimes an empty church may be the place where things sound differently than they do when preachers preach and choirs sing.
Things you may have heard a thousand times before: Bible texts like those we heard tonight, a poem, an article you’ve read and talked about; a phrase or saying, song or conversation that you’ve had with others. Or, perhaps, in these December days, a Christmas carol. Familiar, yes; but strange in a sudden newness.
When you’re alone, the words sound differently because you have the time to think, to hear them and the sound they make as they touch your mind and heart with no one else around.
Perhaps it is in a candle’s glow or the golden flame of a fireplace, before the Christmas tree, with tiny lights that flash their holiday reminders. And in these kinds of Christmas lights, you can hear what you have heard before a thousand times — differently, more clearly.
Tonight, my attention focuses upon light precisely because we celebrate this greatest of feasts in the middle of the night! Isaiah begins the proclamation of the Word by announcing “the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light … upon those who live in gloom a light has shone!” Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, is that light!
Our Gospel from St. Luke, so familiar to us, explains that “The angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them … For today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Christ and Lord.” And we all have in our minds the image of that “star” in the eastern sky over Bethlehem, leading the shepherds and the wise men to the manger and to Jesus Christ, the light of the world. His light, his Christmas light, must continue to shine, even when we find ourselves surrounded by darkness, at times. The darkness that we faced in the hurricane earlier this fall and that some continue to face this Christmas night. The darkness that confronted us last week in Newtown, Connecticut, with the massacre of so many innocent children, and that continues to confront their families in their loss this Christmas night. The darkness that the Diocese faces tonight with the sudden death of one of its beloved pastors at Corpus Christi Parish in Burlington, Father Daniel Ryan. Our faith compels us to believe that God’s light still shines, bringing us hope, bringing us peace.
Earlier today, in Rome, Our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI preached in his Christmas homily:
If God’s light is extinguished, man’s divine dignity is also extinguished. Then the human creature would cease to be God’s image, to which we must pay honor in every person, in the weak, in the stranger, in the poor. Then we would no longer all be brothers and sisters, children of the one Father, who belong to one another on account of that one Father. The kind of arrogant violence that then arises, the way man then despises and tramples upon man: we saw this in all its cruelty … Only if God’s light shines over man and within him, only if every single person is desired, known and loved by God is his dignity inviolable, however wretched his situation may be. On this Holy Night, God himself became man; as Isaiah prophesied, the child born here is “Emmanuel”, God with us (Is 7:14). And down the centuries, while there has been misuse of religion, it is also true that forces of reconciliation and goodness have constantly sprung up from faith in the God who became man. Into the darkness of sin and violence, this faith has shone a bright ray of peace and goodness, which continues to shine.
So Christ is our peace, and he proclaimed peace to those far away and to those near at hand (cf. Eph 2:14, 17). How could we now do other than pray to him.
And so, we have before us the manger scene, the crèche, and the Child promised through all the ages. The words of our scriptures tell his story. The child and his mother; St. Joseph and the shepherds; the kings along their way. The stable. The crib of straw. The animals all around. The star and the angel. “Behold, I bring you glad tidings of great joy.”
Joy is often easier to hear about in “glad tidings” that are shared with others. The One who was delivered that Christmas night has brought deliverance. The One who was innocent has saved the guilty. The One whose birth was so humble has scattered the proud and lifted up the lowly. The One who was born has given new birth to us all. What was once beyond our grasp has become, is now and ever shall be among us. We’ve heard it before, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” But there is new joy in hearing it again, differently and more clearly. And when we hear it and the joy becomes our own, then is the best time to return to others and bring them “glad tidings of great joy.”
Man was never meant to be alone for long. And the joyful feast of Christmas makes that so very clear: God is with us, Emmanuel, whether we are with others or by ourselves, when our faith brings us together or in those special moments of prayer when our faith moves us to draw apart for just awhile. This Christmas, make time to know the light and the joy that Jesus brings!
Merry Christmas and all God’s blessings in the New Year!