Christmas Midnight Mass 2019
 
Dear Brothers and Sisters: Today a Saviour has been born for us Who is Christ the Lord.  The Psalm for Midnight Mass takes up this message of the Angel to the Shepherds who were watching their flocks by night.  Reflecting on the wonder of that Heavenly encounter, and on all the shepherds went on to see in the Bethlehem stable, tonight’s Mass contemplates the God Who made this most sacred night radiant with the splendour of the true light.  The Mystery of the Messiah on earth has continued revealing itself down the ages to Christian souls who have come to see and wonder like the shepherds, even until this night.  The light of Bethlehem will shine on our poor world until that Happy Day when all is at last made manifest and humble worshippers delight in His gladness in Heaven. 
 
The Scriptures teach us that, pondering upon the mystery of this Night and gladdened by its light, we return to our daily lives praising God and making manifest to all humankind the joy of Christ’s Salvation so that the world rests in the peace He brings. 
 
In his own time the Prophet Isaiah did all he could to make manifest to all Judea and future generations the sign of the maiden with child.  He assured the People that the Lord’s coming would not mean dread catastrophe to strike down the human race with disaster for its offences and sins.  On the contrary, the Messiah’s arrival would bring increased joy and gladness.  His coming would call the People to conversion, not condemnation, and raise up their spirits to hope for a brand-new beginning, that would feel something like the joy of harvest time or the gladness of victory after a long war.  It would feel something like a great weight lifted from their shoulders.   Isaiah’s promise allowed the People to live thereafter free from fear, and to look forward to an Elect One, Who would come with blessings of lasting peace when the time was right.
 
In the same way, when the Great Day of the People’s Redemption finally arrived in Bethlehem, the Angels passed onto the shepherds news of the birth of the Messiah, not in secret whispers in the dark but in the deafening throng of a mighty chorus.
Their message had not one note of retribution in it but only the delightful harmony of essential Christian faith. They sang of a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger Who is a Saviour born to the whole human race; of a Saviour Who is the Lord, the Very God Himself; of One Who comes as the Christ, anointed to reveal the Glory of God in Heaven and bring lasting peace to a favoured earth. 
 
The Christmas message is a joyful promise, and one for broadcasting far and wide.  It is a joy to be shared by the whole People as fresh strength to our world.  It is a summons to Christian souls to believe in their hearts with firm hope and then to share the Good News of better days to come because in Christ our future is always bright!   We need never face it with foreboding but always in sure expectation of gladder times since, in the Emmanuel, God is here to save and prosper us till the end of time. 
 
The real message of Christmas is that, in the Babe of Bethlehem, in the Mystery of the Word Incarnate, something greater than ourselves, greater that we could ever have dreamed of or even understand, has appeared in our midst.  Jesus Christ, the world’s Messiah, is God’s Only Son, born to us of the Virgin Mary and, though He is part of our world, is far much more than all the world put together in His Essence, His Self and His power to rule over all Creation.
 
Isaiah preached his message of hope in the dark reign of the evil king Ahaz, and the Birth of the Messiah occurred in the Roman occupation of Caesar Augustus whose decree for a census of the whole world caused great consternation to ordinary people throughout the Empire.
 
Isaiah’s prophecy had to wait seven centuries to be fulfilled, and the birth of the Emmanuel took place on the margins, unobserved by the geo-political commentators of the time.  Neither King Ahaz nor Caesar Augustus had any notion of the cosmically historic events unfolding outside of the daily news and right under their noses. 
 
All this should remind us that even in the midst of the political woes of our own times small-minded and partisan bickering need not define our future.  However much our political rulers disappoint us in not changing the world to our liking, the Christmas story teaches us that there is a Mystery among us that is bigger and better than all this world, already alive and active among us.  The world’s better future is already assured and is here among us literally to reach out and touch in God present among us in the Emmanuel, and always with us in His Church and Her Eucharist till the last.
 
And because a wonderful future is already assured to humanity in Christ among us, our hope of glory, we need not be cowed by any prophets of doom who clamour about us with breaking news of humanity doomed, and our planet poised and waiting to wreak revenge on us in final judgement for our abuse of our environment and its gift of Nature.  Surely, we must care for our common home but the Good News of the Christ-Child is of a God Who is generous and provident to us, Who loves us as His precious children, Who is never defeated and Who always knows how to begin again with us, no matter how harmful our sin have been or damaging to our world.  We just have to turn to our Farther God, our Emmanuel God with us and for us, forever on our side and all manner of things shall be well.
 
In the end, the Good News and the challenge of the Angel’s message is that, while politics and its causes celebres come and go, what matters is that any age of humanity can respond to the gift God made to us of Himself in the Babe of Bethlehem.  
 
The joy and wonder of the Christmas night call us to worship the Messiah King, living lives that witness to Him Who, coming into our world in the birth of a Child, gives us new hope where hope seemed gone, and opens our hearts to our world’s best of reasons for lasting good cheer.   
 
Gaudete! Gaudete! Christus est natus ex Maria Virgine! Gaudete!