Homily for The Midnight Mass

December 25, 2019
St. Patrick’s Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas

Isaiah 9:1-6
Psalm 96: 1-2, 2-3, 11-12, 13
Titus 2:11-14
Luke 2:1-14

It is very difficult to see in the darkness. We can stumble over things and get hurt in the darkness. We can become agitated by our imagination when we are in the dark. The darkness can make us feel isolated and lonely, not seeing and not being seen. Yet, our eyes can soon grow accustomed to the darkness and we can become satisfied with stumbling around a room in the dark. We can soon numb our imagination’s turbulence simply by imagining that “there’s no need to be afraid of the dark.” The darkness can begin as our acquaintance, soon become our companion, and end up serving as a friend of our convenience.

The shepherds kept watch over their flocks in the dark of night. They paid attention and kept watch amid the darkness in order to protect their flocks from very real dangers that they knew prowl in the dark of night to prey upon the flock — dangers that their experience had taught them were not simply figments of their imaginations. The shepherds paid attention in the darkness of night. Their attentiveness to their watch prepared them to hear the angels sing and to see God’s glory in the Christ Child born in circumstances familiar to them including the dark dank of a stable, probably where many of them had been born or seen their children born.

They were accustomed to the dark and how to pay attention in the dark, but their encounter with the Christ Child revealed to them that they don’t belong to the dark, nor would the dark prevail. They recognize in the Child that, even more than the Child belonging to them in their poor circumstances, they belong to the Child who is born as the Light of the World in the midst of darkness — so that they might become one with this light of the world.

This idea of “keeping watch” is a central theme of Jesus’ message as presented throughout Luke’s Gospel. Luke’s Gospel begins with shepherds keeping watch and awake in the dark of night. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus asks his Apostles present to keep watch with Him and to stay awake and attentive in the dark of night. The shepherds are watchful people because in their poverty they cannot offer God only a small part of their lives. They depend totally on His Providence; it’s all or nothing and so they are watchful for Him. The shepherds cannot afford to befriend the dark. As Pope Benedict XVI once observed, “Only a watchful heart can instill the courage to set out to find God in the form of a baby in a stable.”

We are here tonight in this cathedral amid darkness because God has given us the grace to pay attention as the shepherds paid attention to the light amid darkness. We are here because in the same Christ Child born anew amid the darkness, we see by the Light of the world the real and unconditional love of God. The Christ Child has brought us here so that our eyes can no longer remain accustomed to the darkness nor can we settle by living alone and isolated with the figments of our imaginations. We realize in the dark of night in this cathedral that there is no need to be afraid of the darkness. Only when we live as children of the Light, the Light is never extinguished and casts no shadows.

Unlike the figments of our imagination stunted by the dark, the Christ Child is not imaginary. He is really born of Mary. Christ is the Light of the World, who can neither deceive nor be deceived. A proverb holds that you become what you love. Adam and Eve loved the darkness and so human beings became dark. Yet, God loved human beings, and so He became one of us that we might be one with the Light and no longer of the dark. The real presence of God’s love outflanks and undercuts the pretense of human imagination.

Our entrance procession for the celebration of this Mass began with the hymn “Adeste Fideles.” We translate this roughly as “O Come all Ye Faithful,” but “Adeste” more truly is translated as “Be Present, Be Attentive.” We are attentive to two messages of the mystery of this night: the historic and the prophetic. There is the historic and real scene of the crib, the compelling scene of the poor shelter of the stable protecting Mary and Joseph, the birth of the Christ Child, shivering in the cold and swaddled for His warmth and protection, the baby Jesus sleeping where animals feed. Everything about this scene grabs our attention: the night, the cold, the poverty, the injustice, the indifference, the solitude; and, then, the incomparable message of the angels, the arrival of the shepherds, the light casting away the darkness.

Our faithful attention should also turn next to the second message of Bethlehem, the prophetic message of the Christ Child. The Child born tonight is Christ the Lord who is our Savior, sent by the Father to deliver us from the darkness of sin and fear. We are attentive to His birth as the Light of the World, and because of this, we are attentive to His mission that He generously offers us as our mission of light into darkness. Thus, we leave tonight obliged in love to be attentive to His presence in others who are affected by and accustomed to the darkness — so in need of the light that now has shone upon and in us. Our attentiveness has brought us to the stable tonight with the shepherds to see the Christ Child; our attentiveness must guide us out of this cathedral tonight to see the same Christ Child present in the poor, in the unborn, in the refugee, in victims of crime, in those wounded in battle, in those who are ignored and overlooked in a society that has grown accustomed to the darkness and indifferently imagines the darkness to be inevitable and not all that bad.

The vulnerable baby in the manger, the Word made flesh, proclaims in the wordlessness of infancy that He requires of us only our love. As Pope Saint Paul VI reminded us on Christmas night many years ago, “Is not that power which is Christ exercised completely for us, for our benefit, for our salvation, for our love? Christ came for us, not against us. He is not a competitive rival to us. He is not an enemy. He is a guide for us on our way, He is a friend. And that means for all of us: each and every one of us can rightly say: the Christ Child has come for me.”

Homily for The Midnight Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral

December 25, 2018
St. Patrick’s Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas

Isaiah 9:1-6
Psalm 96: 1-2, 2-3, 11-12, 13
Titus 2:11-14
Luke 2:1-14

There is a proverb that says, “You become what you love.” In the Garden of Eden and thereafter, the world loved darkness and became dark. The human intellect became dark with error and falsehood; the human will became dark with lust and anger; the human character became dark with sin and vice. Yet, God loved us and so He became one of us in Jesus that we might through His free gift of freedom love light and become light and one with Him. This is what we celebrate tonight at Christmas.

Today is born our Savior, Jesus Christ the Lord. He is given the name Emmanuel, the name that means “God is with us.” He is given that name by Joseph who belongs to Him as His foster father; He is given that name by Mary who belongs to Him as His Mother. Yet, the world as represented by Caesar Augustus, to whom He does not belong, rejects Him and chooses to regard Him not by His name but by the darkness of a number—the darkness of the census. The darkness that the world loves is a darkness that prefers to enumerate in the places where God prefers to call by name; these places where God calls humanity to name and to be named. It is not coincidental that the prince of darkness, the prince of this world, is known by a number (666) and not by a name. It is poignant when we consider that in the not too distant history of the world, the Nazis dehumanized the Jews by tattooing a number on them and removing from them the human dignity of having a name. There is belonging in the gift of a name, there is possession in the ascribing of a number. Numbers are added, multiplied, divided and subtracted. Names reveal and conceal the mystery of a person, a person to be known and not a person to be used. The world that loves darkness rejects the Divine gift of humanity, the gift that is made known by the luminous intimacy of a name, Emmanuel—“God is with us”.

Jesus is born that we might love the light and that in the light we might receive again the redeemed gift of our full humanity lost by the sin of our first parents in Eden. Jesus is born that we might know Him and in knowing Him might belong to Him that we might truly know each other and love and belong to each other beyond the temptation of quantifying each other by a number. Jesus is born that we might truly love God by first being loved by Him and not simply love the number of things that we ascribe to Him only from the distance of ingratitude.

Jesus is born as the light of the world that He might free us from our burdens and burden us with His freedom. As we heard in our first reading from Isaiah, “For the yoke that burdened them, the pole on their shoulder, and the rod of their taskmaster you have smashed, as on the day of Midian.” Christ frees us from the burden of anonymity. He frees us from the burden of ignorance and fear. He frees us from the burden of violence and rage. He frees us from the burden of autonomy and compulsivity. He frees us from the burden of apathy and isolation.

Jesus, the light of the world, burdens us with His freedom to respond to God’s call to each of us to belong and to show that belonging by each of our actions. As we heard in our second reading taken from Saint Paul’s Letter to Titus, “The grace of God has appeared, saving all and training us to reject godless ways and worldly desires and to live temperately, justly, and devoutly in this age, as we await the blessed hope.” This is a burden Christ imposes upon us. He burdens us with His freedom to do as we should and not as we simply prefer. He burdens us with His freedom from godlessness by giving us knowledge of the truth. He frees us with His burden of justice and beauty. He frees us with His burden of mercy and forgiveness. He frees us with the burden of belonging to God and others—a burden that requires sacrifice on our part. He frees us with the burden of the Cross—the burden of love.

We witness the burden of His freedom in the love shared selflessly between husband and wife belonging to each other in marriage tenderly committed to fidelity, permanence, and openness to God’s gift of children despite the darkness of such problems as unemployment and sickness. We witness and share the burden of His freedom in the love that a mother offers in carrying her child belonging in her body and enduring the burdens of childbirth despite the darkness of its pains. We witness the burden of His freedom in the love of a father dedicating his life in the protection and formation of his children as belonging to a family despite the darkness of fatigue and worry. We witness the burden of His freedom in the selflessly chaste and obedient life of a priest in service as a pastor belonging to Christ and His Church despite the darkness of temptation to ignore the wolf and to become only a hired hand. We witness the burden of His freedom in the inclusion and generosity that we manifest for the vulnerable and marginalized in our society despite the darkness to quantify and dismiss them as only an abstract problem. The light that shines in the manger of Bethlehem surrounded by Mary and Joseph, the shepherds and angels, and even the animals—is the inconvenient light of unconditional love. God loves us and becomes one of us in the Holy Child of Bethlehem—willing that we should be saved by the fullness of His humanity. God is swaddled in our human condition that our human condition might become redeemed humanity—freed from burdens and burdened by authentic freedom. He is born that we might truly be free that we might be burdened in the love of God and of each other. Today is born our savior, Jesus Christ the Lord.

Homily for Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve

December 24, 2017
St. Patrick’s Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas

Isaiah 9:1-6
Psalm 96: 1-2, 2-3, 11-12, 13
Titus 2:11-14
Luke 2:1-14

“There was no room for them in the inn.” So Mary and Joseph and the unborn Christ child go to the stable where Christ is born. He is wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. All of us recognize this verse and these images, even if we are only vaguely familiar with the story of Christmas.

Yet, this expression that there is “no room in the inn,” the image of swaddling clothes, and the symbol of the manger are so much more than a commentary on the human condition’s insensitivity to the plight of those in need. These images also reveal to us that in coming to us through the Incarnation, God will no longer tolerate man only making room for God as a small compartment within man’s life. Humanity has no other option in moving forward than to decide whether or not to belong to God.

For now at Christ’s birth, when man has no room for God, God makes room for man in the fullness of divine life. God meets us where we are in our humanity — in the stable, in the darkness, in the margins of society and family life, in the dank smell of sin and corruption — but God does not leave us there. The Son of God, the Prince of Peace, does not first reveal Himself to the exalted and the powerful because they are not like the shepherds who are keeping watch; the exalted and the powerful think that they already have made a small place for God in each of their lives that He might fit into their own plans. The exalted and those esteemed greatly by the world are not keeping watch tonight, because they are preoccupied with their own purposes.

This idea of “keeping watch” is a central theme of Jesus’ message as presented throughout Luke’s Gospel. Luke’s Gospel begins with shepherds keeping watch and staying awake in the dark of night. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus asks His Apostles present to keep watch with Him and to stay awake in the dark of night. The shepherds are watchful people because in their poverty they cannot offer God a small part of their lives. They depend totally on His Providence; it’s all or nothing and so they are watchful for Him. As Pope Benedict XVI once observed, “Only a watchful heart can instill the courage to set out to find God in the form of a baby in a stable.”

The shepherds arrive at the stable and they find the Infant Jesus swaddled in rags. They encounter God who has swaddled Himself in the human condition so that humanity can be swaddled in Jesus’ divinity through the grace of Baptism. This swaddling of the Infant Jesus highlights that God has made Himself to be vulnerable through the full humanity of Jesus — but even more so, God has made Himself to be the most vulnerable among all vulnerable human beings: He has become a swaddled infant. In the vulnerable Infant Jesus we see God’s refusal to tolerate any longer His being offered only a spare room in man’s life. God demands not capitulation to His power on our part, He only asks for our love.

The celebration of Christmas Mass at Midnight has always most vividly called to mind the mystery of God made Man, Emmanuel, God-with-us. The celebration of warm joy in the midst of cold and darkness reminds us most beautifully that Christ is the light of the world shining brightly in the darkness — the darkness of our lives and of the world. In a special way, the placing and blessing of the statue of the Infant Jesus in the manger scene places all of us gathered here tonight in that original manger scene. It helps us to belong in the manger spiritually and to remember who belonged there on that great night so many years ago.

Who belonged there in the stable? The angels proclaim the birth of the Christ child and the shepherds hear them. The shepherds were in the outskirts and fields, caves and valleys seldom venturing into the town. The shepherds are watchful because they have no place of their own so they have no spare room for God in their lives. In their watchfulness God reveals fully in the Infant Jesus their place in God’s life and not God’s part in their lives. The shepherds who are unrecognized by so many are the first to recognize the Infant in the manger as the Christ. In so doing, the shepherds belong to Him in the stable.

Mary and Joseph, having heard their respective calls through the Archangel Gabriel and through another angel are blessed by their respective and extraordinary graces; they recognize the true identity of the Infant Jesus who is born tonight because they have been watchful and attentive to God in faith and in reverential love. In so doing, Mary and Joseph belong to Jesus in the stable.

As we look at the stable, we see the ox and the donkey on either side of the Infant Jesus with Mary and Joseph. Even the ox and the donkey belong to the Christ child as the Anointed One — Emmanuel — God-with-us. Why aren’t the donkey and ox mentioned in the Gospel story? The ox and donkey are not mentioned in Luke’s Gospel, many literalists object. Yet we read in the very first chapter of Isaiah in its third verse: “An ox knows its owner, and a donkey its master’s manger; but Israel does not know, my people have not understood.” The presence of these animals fulfills the prophesy of Isaiah and the ox and donkey belong there.

Who isn’t watchful and who chooses not to belong in the stable? Herod, the Roman Empire’s bureaucrats, the inn keepers, and others who are too busy and too preoccupied to belong.

The philosophers, the experts, and those who already have a spare room for God in their lives miss the song of the angels and the birth of the Christ Child. In keeping a spare room for God, they choose not to belong to Him but to treat Him as an occasional guest whom they invite when they are bored. They are either asleep or about other evil business transacted in the dark of night; the very darkness in which the light of the Christ Child now shines so brightly.

Reason itself, unaided by faith, does not permit us to watch for the mystery of God’s victory in the defenseless Infant Jesus who conquers humanity by vulnerable love. Reason, unaided by faith, fosters isolation and selfishness in each of these groups who choose not to belong in the stable. This is the selfishness which darkens the intelligence of human beings so that they miss their true identity of belonging to God and to each other as His children; they sadly prefer the tinseled allure of individualism. This darkness still pervades in much of our world today. Yet, the light of the Christ Child shines ever brighter in its midst on this Christmas morning.

As Pope Francis remarked about this Gospel, “The newborn Child challenges us. He calls us to leave behind fleeting illusions and to turn to what is essential, to renounce our insatiable cravings, to abandon our endless yearning for things we will never have. We do well to leave such things behind, in order to discover, in the simplicity of the Divine Child, peace, joy and the luminous meaning of life.”

So fallen humanity receives its Savior in a manger, a place where animals go by instinct to feed. Yet, the same Christ child will grow and as a man nourish our fallen humanity with the redemptive banquet of His Body and Blood, the Eucharist — the Sacrament whereby we can truly belong.

Yet, do we belong here tonight? Or, are do we prefer the company of the cunning Herod who sees the Christ Child as a threat to his power and caprice? Are we with the indifferent Roman bureaucrats who ignore the Christ child until the status quo is threatened? Are we in commerce with the inn keepers who have not even a spare room for the Christ child or His parents except insofar as they could add to the profit margin?

Are we willing to accept the gift of belonging in the stable with Mary and Joseph? Mary, weary from travel and child birth, exhausted in the stench of a stable, the only place of refuge; Joseph, saddened and shamed for not being able to provide more in the keeping of his promise to the angel in serving as the guardian of Mary and Jesus.

Our gift of belonging to God in Christ requires our not having a spare room for Him but embracing in our weakness His room for us; it requires our swaddling in His divinity through the gift of Baptismal Grace; and it requires our being nourished and transformed at the banquet of His sacrificial love, the Eucharist.

Christ is born again in our lives. His light shines in the darkness of our selfish human condition. He welcomes us back to belong again to our redeemed human nature that was wounded by sin but now in the manger surpasses even the original state of our humanity in the Garden of Eden. Today is born our Savior, Jesus Christ the Lord. May His light and His love bless us with watchful hearts.