Homily for Midnight Mass

December 25, 2024
Saint Patrick 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

“Today is born our Savior, Jesus Christ the Lord.” The message of Christmas is that because God became fully human through the freely given “yes” of the Blessed Virgin Mary, born amidst the darkness in Bethlehem, and given the name Jesus, human beings no longer have to be defined according to their sins. Since the time that our first parents gave into the temptation of the devil and disobeyed God, the devil’s lie had its sway over human beings resulting in our being terrified by God. Venerable Fulton Sheen wisely taught that when the devil tempts us, he convinces us that our sins are no big deal and of little consequence, but immediately after we sin, he tells us that our sin is so horrible that even God cannot forgive it and there is no hope. The lie of the devil is that our sin defines us, the truth revealed tonight in the tender Infant of Bethlehem is that humanity belongs to God and that our relationship with God through Baptism in Christ is what defines us.

The deception of the devil inconsistently but cunningly tells us to presume that God is of no consequence and at the same time to be afraid of God just as Adam and Eve hid from God. The Old Testament records in the Law and the prophets that the human condition wounded by the sin of Adam prompted human beings to run away in terror whenever encountering the Lord God. Because of this, anxiety became the default position for human behavior even as God sought to save them through the Law given to Moses or the preaching and example of the prophets who cried out that God desired His People to return to Him.

Is this not the same darkness in which Christ is born in our world today and in many of our lives? Our dominant culture is simultaneously the most morally permissive culture that excuses every sin, but then judges without mercy and offer no hope of redemption to those who fall into sin. So, the message of the culture is to ignore God for He is not needed and to be afraid of Him as a rival to our freedom to get our own way in life. It is only in the Divine Infant of Bethlehem, the Christ Child, that we encounter our authentic human nature in its fullness and beauty and can become brothers and sisters to each other.

The Infant offers us freedom and peace. It is only in the Baby Jesus surrounded by His Blessed Mother and Saint Joseph that we have a path to universal peace and respect for full human dignity. It is only in the Holy Child of Bethlehem in a manger that we see that human life is not futile, bitter, and stingy but meaningful, glorious, and loving.

The medieval theologian William of Saint Thierry once said that God – from the time of Adam – saw that his grandeur provoked resistance in human beings, that we felt limited in our own being and threatened in our freedom. So tonight, we celebrate the new and irrevocable way that God chooses to come to us. He became a poor infant. He made himself weak and completely dependent on others. He placed Himself not in a palace, or even an inn, but in an impure stable. He appeared trusting and in need of our love. Now – this God who has become a mild infant says to us – “you can no longer fear me, you can only love me.”

The message of Christ’s Nativity is that to approach the glory of God in the highest we must approach Him in the lowest and most humble – the poor Infant lying surrounded by Mary and Joseph, seeking refuge in a musty stable crowded by animals in Bethlehem. The manger scene in this cathedral and in our homes carries the joy of this message even more clearly than words. We must bow down to approach the Infant in the manger, we cannot follow Him from a distance. We bow down so we can hear His cries for our love and for our compassion and then rise again in humility with our humanity renewed to love Him again present in other human beings impoverished and in need of the same. His light remains love, where there is hatred and apathy there remains darkness.

The Grace of Christmas humbles us to bend down with fortitude and hope, to pass through the portal of faith and encounter God who is so different from the false idols of our fears and ideals, the true God who both reveals and conceals himself in the humility of a newborn baby, who trains us “to reject godless ways and worldly desires and to live temperately, justly, and devoutly in this age, as we await the blessed hope, the appearance of the glory of our great God and savior Jesus Christ.”