Catholics on Call Christmas Message: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light”

Merry Christmas from all of us in the Catholics on Call office!!!

Christmas Mass at Midnight

“What time is your Midnight Mass?” I don’t think I will ever forget the first time I heard that question. I was a young friar at the time, living at one of our old parishes in Indianapolis, one of those traditional places that always celebrated Midnight Mass at midnight. So I found the question rather strange and didn’t know how to answer; in fact, I wondered if someone was playing a practical joke on me. What I have learned since then is that there are a lot of Churches -- then and now-- who celebrate Midnight Mass at all kinds of times on Christmas Eve. Tonight I’ll be celebrating at 7:00 pm, and I suspect that most of the Masses celebrated both today and tomorrow will be using the Scriptures assigned for the Mass at Midnight, at least the Gospel Reading from Luke. And the reason is because that’s ourstory. We can find our own lives in it.

What is important here is not the exact time but the “sense” of what it means to celebrate Midnight Mass. No one knows the exact date or time of Jesus’ birth; some have even ventured to suggest that he was born in the summer! Does it really matter? Mass at Midnight is more of a theological statement than an historical one. For centuries the Church has gathered at the darkest part of the darkest night of the year, and in the darkness we hear those awesome words from the prophet Isaiah: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.” We know in the depths of our hearts that we are those people, that we still sometimes walk in darkness, and that we still need to see the great light. It reminds me of a story of a three-year old boy and his mother who were laying in the boy’s bed and looking out the window at the moon. The boy says to his mother, “Mommy, who made the moon?” “Well,” she says, “God made the moon.” And the boy says, “Mommy, why did God make the moon.” At first the mom is a little stumped; she doesn’t know what to say. Then she says, with great confidence, “God made the moon so that we would know that no matter how dark it gets, there’s always a little bit of light.” Isn’t that the truth!?

On the cover of my Magnificat for the month of December is the manger scene with all of its rich array of characters. This year, for the first time, I noticed that the only light in the scene is emanating from the crib. Jesus Christ is the light of the world indeed. The Christmas Gospel is our story, one that we never really tire of telling. As we hear it, Lucan images of shepherds and angels and sheep and Joseph and Mary and the manger mingle with Matthew’s magi and camels and somehow it all fits together. Our Christmas Crèche is in place at home as well as in the Church, and there is a connection there that is clear and even holy. And when you think about it there is something powerful about the fact that everyone there -- including the animals-- is a guest. No one is actually “at home” and they are all able to. Being a guest makes a person a little more humble, a little more open, maybe even a little kinder and gentler with the people around us, even the strangers.

Maybe that is the great light that shines in our darkness this year. Maybe Christmas 2010 is a reminder to us that we are all really guests in God’s world and everything that we have is a gift to be cherished and then shared. With all of this polarity and infighting in the world and even in the Church, with all of this condemning that seems to be happening left and right, with all of this anti-immigrant sentiment that seems to be winning the day, we would be a lot better off if we could all see ourselves as guests who are all basking in the same light. We are those people who still sometimes walk in darkness, but we have also seen and been touched by the great light, and that is the greatest gift of all.

Paz y Bien,

Father Ed, ofm