Homily: Christmas Mass at Night (12/24/2019)

I've embedded a video of this homily below. The complete text of the homily follows the video.

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Readings: Is 9:1-6; Psalm 96; Ti 2:11-14; Lk 2:1-14
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Well then, Merry Christmas, and welcome to the Midnight Mass. But since midnight is way past our bedtime, we cleverly celebrate it at 8 p.m.

Tonight, we celebrate an encounter with God as He had never been encountered before. And it’s really a most remarkable thing.

Before this night, for thousands of years, humanity had accepted the existence of a God, or of multiple gods, who they believed had brought all of creation into being. This belief in a Creator’s existence was universal. You simply don’t find atheists among either the most primitive or the most civilized or our ancient ancestors. Atheism, and its weaker, little brother, agnosticism, are really modern inventions, simply the result of man unwilling to accept a god other than himself.

But the ancients accepted their limitations. Applying their senses and their minds, they realized the beauty and wonders surrounding them could not have come into being simply by chance. Because our ancient ancestors lacked revelation, their gods took on many different forms, but most were simply the result of men creating gods in their own image. They were certain of God’s existence, but He was a distant God, unapproachable, unknowable. We get brief glimpses of this in those first few chapters of Genesis.

But then God, the only God, makes Himself known. He speaks to a man whom He calls Abraham and begins a 2,000-year-long process of revelation in which He gradually reveals Himself and His plan for humanity. Remarkably, He does all this through Abraham’s descendants, a most unlikely tribe of nobodies that God had chosen simply because of their weakness and anonymity. Indeed, it is through their weakness that they magnify God’s glory. For 2,000 years God revealed Himself and His expectations for us, His creatures. And what a gift this Revelation is!

Do you realize how blessed we are to be Catholic Christians? What we believe and how we worship are not things we’ve concocted. They’re not a collection of man’s feeble attempts to placate some higher power. No, our Christian Faith, our Sacred Liturgy, are God’s Word and God’s Work. It all comes from God Himself.

It’s not a religion, brothers and sisters; it’s a Revelation! It’s a Revelation that runs through many generations, from Abraham to Moses to David, through all the prophets, and eventually to Jesus Himself – Who is the fulfillment of it all.

Yes, it’s a Revelation completed in the Incarnation when Mary, as Luke reveals to us:

“…gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn” [Lk 2:7].

Once again, God’s glory is manifested through weakness. Mary knew this, accepted it, and expressed it to the ages when she proclaimed:

“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior…” [Lk 1:46-47]

As I said earlier, this is an encounter with God as He has never been encountered before.

You see, brothers and sisters, God has not only made Himself known to us, but almost beyond imagining, He became one of us. We have a God Who has skin on, a God who took on a human body from the Virgin Mary through the power of the Spirit of God. We rejoice tonight that the God Who created the universe from nothing was born one night of a young Jewish girl in a manger in a little town called Bethlehem. Yes, He is our God, a God of skin and bones and flesh and blood, and tonight we celebrate His birthday.

Birthdays are wonderful celebrations, aren’t they? To wish others a happy birthday is to tell them how much they mean to us, to express our joy that they were born. Tonight, we say the same to Jesus. We gather in this church, at this rather unusual hour for Mass, to express our joy that He came into the world.

When His birth was first announced, not to kings and queens, not to emperors, but to shepherds in the hills of Judea, the angel revealed to the world that it had reason for great joy:

“For today in the city of David a Savior has been born for you Who is Christ and Lord” [Lk 2:11].

Yes, He is their Savior; He is our Savior; He is the Savior of the world. It is through Him, and only through Him, that you and I can safely reach the end of our pilgrimage on earth and see our Savior in all His glory, our Savior, our God with skin on. He is a God Who does the unexpected, a Creator who humbles Himself, coming to us in weakness, and a God who offers gifts on His birthday.

And what a gift it is! This God who shares our lives, offers each of us, individually, a share in the very life of God. The infant, Jesus, born of Mary, was like any other infant, and needed the care that only His mother could give. But He was also different, so very different. Within that tiny body the life of God Himself lay hidden.

Later, as a grown man, He would give to all who would receive Him a share in that life of God, a gift described by John when he wrote:

“But to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name…” [Jn 1:12]

Brothers and sisters, Jesus Christ is already within us through sanctifying grace.

But He continues to call us, through His Church, to renew that grace by living a life free from sin, free from the undue attachment to the things of this passing world. This is one of the special graces offered to us by God in our celebration of the solemnity of Christmas each year.

Yes, we rejoice tonight, for not only was our Savior born, as each of us was born into the world, but He offers to each of us the gift of a new and deeper share in that life which was his from all eternity. The birthday gift Our Savior gives is the gift of Himself; but we shouldn’t celebrate empty-handed. What gift can we give Him Who is Lord of all? The psalmist sums it up, doesn’t he?

Let the heavens be glad and the earth rejoice;
let the sea and what fills it resound;
let the plains be joyful and all that is in them!
Then shall all the trees of the forest exult.
They shall exult before the LORD, for he comes;
for he comes to rule the earth [Ps 96:11-13].

What can we give to the ruler of the earth? The only gift we can offer our newborn Savior, the only thing He does not yet possess, is our hearts. It is this gift we place on the altar when we celebrate the Eucharistic Sacrifice. And what a gift this is! The same gift Jesus offered to His Father, the gift of Himself.

“…a body you prepared for me…Behold, I come to do your will, O God” [Heb 10:5,7].

For here, on this altar, Jesus Christ, gives Himself to us, Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, and allows us, the members of His family, to join Him in the most intimate way imaginable. Here, as we come forward to receive the Body and Blood of Christ, we also join each other in a unique Communion. Eucharist – “the source and summit of the Christian life” – means thanksgiving. It is like a great family dinner, Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners all rolled into one, yet far more wonderful and fulfilling. 

Brothers and sisters, we are sons and daughters of God! These roots are deeper, stronger and longer lasting than any human family roots. Indeed, they’re so strong they’ll carry us all the way to eternal life.

And so, tonight, as we rejoice in the birth of our Savior, let us also rejoice that our names are written in heaven, as members of the family of Jesus Christ.

And let us be the people our loving God wants us to be, imitators of our Lord, Jesus Christ. In the words of one of our newest saints, Saint John Henry Newman:

“May each Christmas as it comes find us more and more like Him who at this time became a little child for our sake, more humble, more holy, more happy, and more full of God.”

Come, Lord Jesus! [Rev 22:10]