Christmas 2021
Midnight Mass
Dearly beloved,
Tonight by the grace of God we celebrate the human birth from the Blessed Virgin of the One born from all eternity of God the Father. Tonight we come to the crib of the One who comes to us each day with His grace. In the darkness of this night, we ask this Divine child, the light of the world, to illumine our hearts and minds and to shine upon all the world, to convert sinners and reward those who suffer for His name’s sake.
As we heard in the Gospel, the Christchild has been drawing souls to himself since his birth, beginning with the shepherds. With the angels as his agents, he calls the shepherds to come and adore him, to rejoice at his nativity. As he drew those souls to himself on this holy night, and has drawn countless souls over the centuries, so this child draws us to the manger.
There are a few things we should consider about those shepherds, and thereby help our own celebration of this mystery. First, that the shepherds were told about this great event was a gift of God. We could say, with some truth, that it was their keeping watch that made them worthy of receiving the message from the angels, but in fact, they were simply doing their duty. And we know from the Church’s teaching on grace that all good works are made possible by divine grace; therefore even the shepherds’ vigilance was due to the grace of God.
All of this means that the Lord chose to reveal himself to these shepherds of his own free choice; nothing necessitated him to do so. In the darkness of that first Christmas night, he ordered the angel to appear to the shepherds as they stood watch and to tell them of his birth, so they could come to adore him and so that their lives would be forever changed. For us, in the darkness of this world, and in a dark period in the earthly Church, we should ponder this carefully. Why are we here tonight while others are absent? Why has God drawn us to his crib and left others in the darkness? What a blessing it is, in such a dark time, to be called to come to Bethlehem and see this child.
A second point is that after they left, the shepherds continued to contemplate this divine intervention. What if they had gone to the crib and then went home and lived normal lives? What if they had never made a proper response to Christ after seeing him in the manger? How many do we know who have approached the crib of the Lord a few or even many times, coming to Christmas Mass, but have now stopped coming to the crib? Or those who still come, but whose lives remain the same when they get home, secular, materialistic, pursuing money and pleasure, and refusing to face the truth and reform their lives?
The truth is that when the shepherds left, they kept returning to the crib in their hearts. St. Luke says that ‘the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God, for all the things they had heard and seen.’ They did not experience the event and then let it take its course, fading into the background; they considered it; they thanked God for it; they shared it with others.
Although we cannot know for certain what the shepherds took from this marvelous event, what we do know is that the angel told them, ‘This day, is born to you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.’ When they hastened to the crib to find the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes, they knew that the child was the Savior and that he was the Lord. Since these men were men of faith—otherwise they would not have cared what God revealed to them through the angel—they desired salvation, and now their Savior had come. When they recalled the event in the years that followed, they thought of the child, and were renewed in their hope for divine deliverance.
Each shepherd would have had different desires for salvation, but being human, we can guess at most of them. They desired salvation from injustice and evil, from suffering and misfortune, from sickness and violence, from loneliness and despair, from sin and death. Whatever most worried them, whatever most oppressed them, that was what they hoped this child would save them from. And so, after they left the crib, whenever they were burdened by sin and its evil effects, they remembered the face of that child and cried out to God that the Savior would save them.
At this time, so many centuries later, we have much more knowledge of these things than did the shepherds. We know that Jesus is one divine person who has assumed a human nature, and that the child the shepherds saw in the manger was all-knowing, all-powerful. If they had asked him for something at that very moment—for instance, to be freed from their habitual sin—he could have granted it. His small and fragile human nature did not hinder his divine power. As St. Ambrose says, “The sobs of that squalling infant cleanse me, those tears wash away my sins.”
And so, we should imitate the shepherds in recalling the child whenever we are oppressed by sin, whether our sin or that of someone else, and ask him to save us. When the devil tempts us, when our bad habits draw us toward sin, when despair comes near, let us cry out to him. As the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem, and let us see this word that is come to pass, which the Lord has showed to us.” Look at the child wrapped in swaddling clothes, and beg him to deliver you, to deliver us. To save us from tyranny, injustice, lies; to save us from sin, sadness, and eternal death. This child is lying in the crib, but at the same time He is ruling the world, defeating the devil, governing the good angels, keeping all things in being. In the darkness of this world, may the divine babe bless us and use his power to save us. And may we, like the shepherds, never forget his newborn face, the face of the Savior, Christ the Lord.
We Canons wish you and your families a blessed Christmastide and pray that all the holy things you ask for on this feast may be given you. Thank you for your charity towards us, your love extended to us for love of Christ and His priesthood. May the Angels and Saints fortify all of us in the year that lies ahead, whatever it may bring. I close with the words of St. Augustine:
‘Rejoice, you who are holy. It is the birthday of Him who sanctifies you. Rejoice, you who are weak and sick. It is the birthday of the Savior, the Healer. Rejoice, you who are in captivity to sin. It is the birthday of the Redeemer. Rejoice, you who are free. It is the birthday of Him who makes you free. Rejoice, you Christians all. It is the birthday of our Savior, Christ the Lord.’