Homily for Sunday, 24 December 2023– The Nativity of the Lord, Mass during the Night

Readings of the day: Isaiah 9:1-6; Psalm 96:1-2, 2-3, 11-12, 13; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:10-14

Once again, sisters and brothers, a blessed and Merry Christmas to all of us, our families, friends, and loved ones!

In our Opening Prayer for this celebration of the Nativity of our Lord, we praised God who has “made this most sacred night radiant with the splendor of the true light.”

God has made “this night,” not some other night far from our experience, “radiant with the splendor of the true light.” Yes, it is right for us to say, God made a night over two thousand years ago over Bethlehem especially “radiant with the splendor of the true light.” That was the night when Jesus was born of the blessed Virgin Mary, “wrapped… in swaddling clothes and laid… in a manger.” That night was greeted by an angel, sent with a message of “the true light” to “shepherds living in the fields.”

“The true light” would reach from Bethlehem to the ends of the earth! Shepherds were about as marginal as could be in Jesus’ time. They lived outside the cities and villages. Experts on Luke’s Gospel often speak of shepherds as people with a somewhat poor reputation. They did not regularly participate in social and religious ritual. They probably smelled a little off, like their sheep. But Luke’s Gospel says that they are the first to hear the message of our Saviour’s birth. And then that one angel sent to tell the shepherds of Jesus’ birth joins “a multitude of the heavenly host.”

The light, the sound of joyous song spreads from there: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favours”! And it all starts with the message of one angel to a group of shepherds. Those shepherds have nothing to lose, so they set out “with haste and [find] Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger.”

Already within our Gospel account of Jesus’ birth, the focus of the action has shifted, from an angel’s encounter with shepherds in their fields to those shepherds, heeding the invitation by the angel, encountering the Saviour of the world in a manger in Bethlehem. And this, sisters and brothers, the manger scene—we might say Act One, Scene Two of the Nativity event, if Act One, Scene One is the shepherds’ fields—is not the last scene of the birth of our Lord on earth, robed in our human flesh.

Today, here and now, we are experiencing another scene of the birth of our Lord into our world, sisters and brothers. “The splendor of the true light” that was first made known by an angel to shepherds, and then made manifest to the shepherds in their encounter with the Christ Child in a manger alongside Mary and Joseph, continues to grow in our present time. “The splendor of the true light,” the sound of joyous song, the encounter with the world’s peace and salvation in our human flesh continues to grow brighter, clearer, and closer in and through us.

How is this so? Is it not a little presumptuous to put ourselves in the Nativity story, so to speak, as if we should imagine ourselves as somehow important enough to be among the first to encounter God in our human flesh! But remember who was first to encounter the Christ Child, after Mary and Joseph: Shepherds were first. But, then, we might ask, was Jesus’ birth not a one-and-done event in history? This event could not still be happening; that is absurd!

In a way this is true: Jesus was born once for all into our world as a human being, there, done, over two thousand years ago in Bethlehem. And some (maybe many) of us may not feel very comfortable—we may feel unworthy—to imagine ourselves “on scene” with the first people to encounter the newborn Son of God.

Some (if not many) of us here tonight may not exactly be comfortable or feel worthy to be here. Some (if not many) of us may not have been to church for a long time. Some (if not many) of us may be conscious of some serious wrong, or have been wronged seriously by somebody else, or may be experiencing broken relationships, divisions within our households and our friendships.

If you are one of these people, I want you to know you are welcome here. Your presence here to celebrate this night of Jesus’ birth, “this most sacred night [made] radiant with the splendor of the true light,” has nothing to do with worthiness: Yours, mine, that of anybody celebrating this Christmas night anywhere in the world. It has nothing to do with whether this is your first time in a church in a long time, a short time, or ever. It had nothing to do with worthiness—of the shepherds, or even of Mary and Joseph—the night Jesus was born. Besides, the shepherds were first on scene at Jesus’ birth, after Mary and Joseph. Let us remember this.

From the shepherds the joyous song, “the splendor of the true light” could only grow. And it continues to grow in and through us. If this were not true, there would be no point in us gathering here to celebrate Christmas. God wants to grow the light in and through us.

This has been God’s desire from the very first moment of creation, when God spoke over the darkness, the primordial chaos and nothingness: “Let there be light.” And, from then on, the light has only grown. Sure, there have been and continue to be moments in our world, its history, our own lives when the light that is God’s presence in our world, in us, has been obscured. There have been moments when people have—when we have—tried to extinguish the light. That is what sin is and does. But our sin is no match for God, who this night takes on our human nature; who this night comes to dwell as one like us in all but sin; who this night invited shepherds through an angel to be the first after Mary and Joseph at the newborn Jesus’ bedside.

If we reflect on when God has intervened in our world, when God has reignited the light of God’s presence in our world, this tends to be when the light has become dimmest to our eyes, when we are most deeply mired in the darkness of sin. The word of God speaks to that this night. When the people of Israel in Old Testament times were at their most sinful, when they had nearly forgotten God in favour of the false gods of militarily and politically powerful nations around Israel, and when Israel had forgotten its responsibility of justice especially toward the most marginalized among themselves, God’s prophet Isaiah spoke to them. Isaiah said to Israel, in the depths of darkness and sin, “The people who have walked in darkness have seen a great light.”

And that light would only grow brighter. The joyous song would only resound more clearly: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favours”! The people of Israel and then the people of the whole world would see, would encounter, would experience the mercy of “a child… born for us, a son given to us… Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” That child would be “born for us” into a world, once again, “in deep darkness.” Israel of Jesus’ time was ruled by the Romans, just the latest in a succession of brutal foreign powers to rule the Holy Land.

We can point out many instances of “deep darkness” in our world still today: Wars, poverty, homelessness, other injustices, broken relationships. Yet, once again, God enters our world: Sure, not as God did just over two thousand years ago, as a baby in the womb of the Virgin Mary, born and laid in a manger in Bethlehem. Sure, God may not be entering the world in our own time through the words of a prophet like Isaiah or through the mighty acts of creation that set this universe in motion at the beginning of time: “Let there be light.”

But now God ignites the light anew, on “this most sacred night radiant with the splendor of the true light.” And God entrusts us, no matter how unworthy we might think we are, with this light. Our Gospels say in another instance that we “are the light of the world.” Each of us, and the Church communally, is “another Christ,” another focus point of God’s light and joyous song in our world.

Christ continues to make his dwelling in our human flesh, the human presence of everybody who celebrates his Nativity throughout the world on this night. Here we welcome and we celebrate the rekindling of the light, God’s entrusting us with the light so that, by our words and deeds of kindness, of justice, of mercy, of peace, of joy, each of us may be a first point of encounter with the light of the Lord. Each of us may become ever more “radiant with the splendor of the true light.” And that true light, that song of true joy, that closeness of encounter with Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world, will only grow brighter and clearer in and through us.

Homily for Sunday, 1 January 2023– The Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God (Octave of Christmas)

Readings of the day: Numbers 6:22-27; Psalm 67:1-2, 4-5, 6-7; Galatians 4:4-7; Luke 2:16-21

Happy New Year, sisters and brothers, and a Happy Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God!

For as long as I can remember, I have treasured the blessing God gives to the children of Israel through Moses and Aaron in the Book of Numbers. When I was a deacon and for my first year as a priest, I served at St. Kateri Tekakwitha Parish in Rochester, New York. Just inside the front door of our rectory at St. Kateri was this prayer. So, it seems appropriate that I offer us, my sisters and brothers of St. Joseph’s College, the same blessing: “The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.”

Sisters and brothers in Jesus Christ, we are still in the season of Christmas. Today is what we call in the Church the Octave Day of Christmas, the eighth day of Christmas, including Christmas Day itself. And the Octave of Christmas, New Year’s Day, is always celebrated in our Church as the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God.

The Gospel reading we have heard today from Luke is the continuation of the Gospel reading many of us would have heard if we were at Mass on Christmas Eve. At Christmas Mass at Night, we hear of shepherds who receive a message from “an angel of the Lord” that the Saviour of the world, Jesus Christ, “has been born to us this day in the city of David,” Bethlehem. And the shepherds are to find this newborn Saviour, of all places, “wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.”

Today those shepherds have arrived at the place where Jesus was born, in a manger in Bethlehem. Luke’s Gospel says that the shepherds “went with haste to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger.” And the shepherds seem to have left in just as much haste as they arrived.

The shepherds who visited Jesus, Mary, and Joseph while Jesus was a newborn in the manger in Bethlehem also seem not to be the type to keep secrets too well (although who could blame them, really; they were the first people on Earth, besides Mary and Joseph, to meet God in the flesh). When the shepherds leave, Luke says, they tell everybody around them “what had been told them about this child.”

The shepherds’ news to the world was news worth proclaiming, that is for sure. It was amazing news, in fact: God, the Saviour of the world, born as a human infant in a manger in Bethlehem, City of David. Luke’s Gospel tells us that “all who heard [this] were amazed at what the shepherds told them.”

But Luke’s Gospel, characteristically so detailed about the events of Jesus’ life, so quickly passes over these amazing events of Jesus’ birth: “The child lying in the manger” tended to by Mary and Joseph, the shepherds arriving and then leaving the manger scene just as quickly, telling everybody they could find about the amazing events they had witnessed, and then returning to their fields, their livelihoods, but “glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen.”

These first eight days of Christmas have passed by so quickly, have they not? And that is even if we have found time to glorify and praise God for all we “have heard and seen,” all the times and all the people in whom we have encountered the human face of God in a special way. We are doing just that right now, sisters and brothers, the worship of the shepherds, glorifying and praising God for all we “have heard and seen.”

Yet it all happens so quickly. And, on this Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, we hardly hear anything about Mary. Rightly, especially because we are still very much in this Christmas season, our New Testament readings today, from St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians and Luke’s Gospel, all focus on Jesus. We are still celebrating Jesus’ birth. So why, when we are still so focused on celebrating the Nativity of Jesus, do we insert today’s celebration of Mary as Mother of God into this Christmas season?

The doctrinal and historical reasons for celebrating the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God on this eighth day of Christmas are many and complicated. The Council of Ephesus in 431 gave Mary the official title of Mother of God, to distinguish from Mother of Christ, a popular title given to Mary at the time. This is to say that Mary is not only the mother of the human Jesus Christ, as if Jesus could not be God and human at the same time after his birth. So to give Mary the name Mother of God is, indirectly, an affirmation that Jesus the Christ, human from his conception in Mary’s womb, is also God.

Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, says that “clearly from the earliest times [of the Church] the Blessed Virgin is honoured under the title of Mother of God.” This is true, yet only since the mid-1700s has a day been set aside specifically to honour the motherhood of Mary, in a way that is not overshadowed by other important events in her life, like the Annunciation or her Assumption, body and soul, into heaven. And only since 1969, under Pope Paul VI (talk about recent!), has the feast day dedicated to the Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary been returned to January 1. Some countries, like Portugal, had celebrated the Maternity of Mary in October.

I like to think of this January 1, Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, as the Church’s Mothers’ Day of sorts. This celebration proposes for us Mary as the ultimate of mothers, the one chosen by God to bear his Son in human flesh into the world. And, for the same reason as I pray this on Mothers’ Day on the second Sunday in May, I pray (and I invite us to pray with me) for all mothers, still living on earth and those in heaven. I invite us to pray for all future mothers, would-be mothers who have had difficulty conceiving, mothers who are raising children in poverty and other difficult circumstances, and mothers whose children have died. Mothers of our Church, my sisters in Christ: I dedicate you to Mary, Mother of God and I ask Mary to bless you with joy, peace, and strength in your vocation as mothers.

I have been reflecting on how little Mary is featured in our readings today, how our New Testament readings focus mostly on Jesus. This is appropriate, especially since we are in the midst of the Christmas season. But Luke’s Gospel today includes one short mention of Mary, one I think is very important, particularly on this Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. Luke says that, as the shepherds arrived and then left the manger scene, and then told the world about Jesus’ birth to everybody’s amazement, “Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.”

Mary, ever the humble mother, our Mother and the model and Mother of the Church, gives us the ideal example of silently treasuring and pondering before her newborn Son, the Saviour of the world. I imagine the shepherds and everybody who visited Jesus, Mary, and Joseph during those days in Bethlehem, returning home more at peace than when they arrived at the manger scene. They returned home treasuring and pondering as Mary did, “glorifying and praising God.”

Sisters and brothers we, too, through this celebration of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, ask the Lord for the grace to treasure and ponder, to glorify and praise God by our words, our actions, our worship. May we be the living blessing to the world and everybody we meet—the blessing Jesus communicated to humble shepherds through his mother Mary, and that God gave the people of Israel through Moses and Aaron in the Book of Numbers: “The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.”