Homily at Christmas Midnight Mass 2023
Midnight Mass invites us each year to leave the comfort and warmth of our homes during these darkest hours of a winter’s night to discover anew the gentle light of a saviour born for us[i]. This, we can say, has been the purpose of Shrewsbury Cathedral every day since its doors opened in 1856. The purpose of all our recent works of renewal and restoration that many like the shepherds on this night, may discover “news of great joy” and glimpse “the glory of the Lord”[ii] – namely, Divine Truth, Goodness and Beauty – manifest in a tiny child who is “Christ.” The Saviour long-awaited and “Lord,” the name with which the Old Testament reverentially speaks of God[iii]. The same Jesus revealed as both true God and true man in “the sign” first given to shepherds of a baby “lying in a manger,”[iv] is now made manifest to us all under the lowly signs of bread and wine: the Mystery of His Eucharist. For Christmas literally means ‘Christ’s Mass.’
“He is the reason for the Season!” declared a note with one of my Christmas cards. The rhyme led me to reflect that Christ is far more than merely a reason for this season. He is the reason for all things, the logic, the Word and wisdom that underlies the whole creation. Each year the Christmas celebration invites everyone to make this rediscovery of “a joy to be shared by the whole people”[v]. Truths we might too easily take for granted are recalled to every mind and heart by these festive days: the value of every human life; the innate dignity of every human being; compassion for the weakest; peace between men and the charity that we owe to each other. These are values and moral imperatives which were alien and unthinkable to the ancient mind but which we trace back to the cradle of Christ’s dawning light.
Each generation passes through its own dark shadows to return constantly to His light. It seems especially sinister that the euthanasia lobby should choose this moment of the year to advance its deadly agenda and even use the Christian imperatives of “compassion” and “mercy” to speak of medical killing. Christianity led us to care for the weakest and most vulnerable, euthanasia proposes a new morality where the light of Christ no longer guides us. Yet even shadows help us see the light more clearly. At the beginning of his Gospel, Saint Luke wants us to see how all depends on a helpless, vulnerable child born in destitution; menaced by homicidal threats and soon to become a refugee seeking asylum in a strange land. Each of the powerful and imposing figures of antiquity whom Saint Luke names would eventually leave only ruins in their wake. Caesar Augustus posed as the world’s saviour in an uneasy peace which providentially served to open the routes of transport and communication to allow Christ’s Gospel to spread quickly; Herod, who had not hesitated to kill three of his own children, sought to extinguish the light of the Saviour’s birth lest it rival his throne, leaving in the Holy Innocents a witness still shining to the sanctity of human life; Quirinius and those who governed an empire required the powerless like Saint Joseph to return to their ancestral homes to register their property for tax. Yet their oppressive schemes would serve to fulfil God’s purpose that the Saviour would be born in Bethlehem.
Saint Luke allows us to see how all things must serve Him. As we look to the Year of Our Lord 2024 and all it will bring, may we likewise see all things in His light.
[i] Cf. Lk. 2: 11
[ii] Lk. 2: 9
[iii] Cf. Lk. 2: 12
[iv] Lk. 2: 13
[v] Lk. 2: 11