Christ's Mass

Details: 24 November 2010

Despite Obstacles

It would not be surprising if the mythical visitor from another planet, who comes to visit America at Christmas time, were to surmise that Christmas itself was nothing but a national holiday which is secular, sentimental, and commercial. He would be sure to note that elements of the pagan past, when heathen celebrations of the winter solstice annually took place, continue to abound in the current culture. And, still, in the words of the lovely Christmas essay of Therese Ickinger in "The Wanderer", he might also note that, despite such obstacles, even now "the wind remembers Eden".

"For men of bad will Christmas remains a story told by the fire for children and old women. Greed has exploited it. Avarice ever buys and sells the Christ in a hundred treacheries. Yet to it all, the eloquent stillness of the Child, the kind and beautiful face of His mother are answers to the world’s profanities. Let vanity wear her emerald eyes. Let ambition build a throne of alabaster. Let talent boast and knowledge preen her purple plumes. Let strength array its arms of might, charms beguile, wealth secure. Love comes in straw, a ragged Prince with a court of oxen, breathing low the ancient anthem of life. Love comes in whispers, a Presence Which invites without urging, a Reality, Which compels by appeal. Before the stable of Bethlehem the world shrinks to its true proportions. Before the manger man comprehends without words the futility of cave and castle alike, the tyranny of possession, the weakness of power, the meagerness of domain, the shortness of time, the all of God."

"It is the utterly confounding reality of the incarnation, totally without pretense, which appalls the non-believers. It is a Gift so enormous, yet so simple, that gratitude can only speak with tears. Silence is the hymn of adoration. Before the Word of God, the words of men fail. Learning seeks dispute, but faith kneels. Pride loses all its passion before the humility of God. A dark night, a single star, and Love is born."

What Happened

Saint Augustine, the great Bishop of Hippo in North Africa in the 5th century, preaching on Christmas, said, "Let no one believe that the Son of God was changed or transformed into the Son of Man, but rather let us believe that He, remaining the Son of God, was made the Son of Man, without loss of His divine substance but by the perfect assumption of the human substance. When the Word of God took on Flesh in the fullness of time that It might appear in our temporal life, Its eternity was not lost in the flesh, but It came to confer immortality on human flesh!"

Saint Augustine goes on, "Brethren, today, on Christmas, let us be happy. Let the nations rejoice and exult. Not the visible sun, but the sun’s invisible Creator gave us this Holy Day, when the Virgin Mother, from the fruitfulness of her womb and with her virginity preserved, brought forth Him Who was made visible for us and by Whom, invisibly, she herself had been created. Before He was made, He was. His was the power, because He is all-powerful, to be made and to remain as He always was. Abiding with His Father, He made for Himself a mother, and when He was made in the womb of His mother, He remained in the Heart of His Father. In short, It was One and the Same Who, from all time and forever, is the Son of God, begotten of the Father, but Who began to be the Son of Man by His birth of the Virgin Mary. Thus, was human nature added to the Son’s divine nature, united in one divine Person."

Other Fathers

Saint John Chrysostom said in a Christmas homily, "How shall I describe this birth to you? For, this wonder fills me with astonishment. The Ancient of days has become an Infant. He Who sits upon the sublime and heavenly throne now lies in a manger. He Who cannot be touched, Who is simple, without complexity and incorporeal, now lies subject to the hands of men. He Who has broken the bonds of sinners is now bound by an infants’ bands. He has decreed that ignominy shall become honor, infamy be clothed with glory, and total humiliation the measure of goodness. He assumed my body that I may be capable of His Word. Taking my flesh, He gives me His Spirit, and so, He bestowing and I receiving, He prepares for me the treasure of life. He takes my flesh to sanctify me. He gives me His Spirit that He might save me.

Pope Saint Leo the Great, speaking of Christmas, said, "What mind can comprehend this mystery? What tongue can describe this wondrous grace? Iniquity returns to the ways of innocence, old age to newness, strangers receive adoption as sons, and they without a claim enter upon an inheritance; the evil begin to live as righteous, the stingy become generous, the impure chaste, and earthly people heavenly minded. The descent of God to what was human has brought about the raising of man to what is divine."

Ickinger

Therese Ickinger writes of Christmas, "Upon our poverty He rests awhile. To the passerby the world is the same, but the clean of heart behold the splendor, and the humble hear the angels’ wings. Virtue becomes more compelling, vice more unthinkable. Human souls become more valuable, human sins more horrible. Love, born in silence and apart, calls us to a divine embrace."

"For we are the wheat of God, buried but alive. Darkness cannot harm us nor cold nor sometime friend nor tyrants’ heel nor terrors terrible. We are the grass of the resurrection, the children of springtime, the sons of summer. We sleep till He calls and then we shall arise and inherit the earth. Winds shall sing through us. Angels shall harvest us. On a golden sabbath upon the altar of His creation the eternal Priest shall pronounce His consecration upon us and pour His life into us. This is My Body He shall say to the Father. This is My Loved One, My Bride (the Catholic Church). Angels shall bend to us; stars shall descend to us, all the bells shall ring for us; all the earth sing for us. For Christ shall consume us and gather us into God. Christ was born on Christmas. Let us glorify Him and lift up our hearts, for we too were born on Christmas." And so, at Midnight Mass let us remember in faith that "the crib and the cross are now cups of gold which truly hold Christ as they did yesterday" in Bethlehem and on Golgotha. Mass, "the greatest miracle of all, is at once Christmas and Calvary, the hope of the huddled cave and the triumph of the empty tomb. It is for believers alone. Faith alone can perceive it."

This is the promise of Christmas and the meaning of Christ’s Mass. Dear readers, may your Christmas be for you and your loved ones, holy, blessed, and really merry!