We come together many times during the year to celebrate special Masses; yet year after year it is this Christmas Mass that draws us here in such great numbers. I believe that we come here because of the longings that are within us, very deep and very human longings. We seek to have those longing satisfied in some way by coming together in Church at Christmas and touching somehow something that is very beautiful and important for my life yet very accessible.

We come together many times during the year to celebrate special Masses; yet year after year it is this Christmas Mass that draws us here in such great numbers. I believe that we come here because of the longings that are within us, very deep and very human longings. We seek to have those longing satisfied in some way by coming together in Church at Christmas and touching somehow something that is very beautiful and important for my life yet very accessible. Something that not only can reach out and touch me, but also something that, in whatever situation I am in my life, I can also reach out and touch.

A number of years ago when I was a priest in New Brunswick, I had a cottage. And late in August one year, we had a get together of a few families who were friends to celebrate the end of summer. It was well into the evening and we were wrapped in blankets around a camp fire on the beach. It was a very clear night, the ocean stretched out in front of us and the sky was crammed with stars. It was the time of year when you look up, you look straight through the Milky Way, straight through the whole universe. The only way I can think of describing the feeling that this gives in its beauty and grandeur, a feeling of Great awe.

One of the younger generation, who had been an altar server for me a number of years before, was sitting beside me, looking up at the sky, and suddenly he says, obviously moved by the grandeur and mystery and beauty that he was looking at: “Father, what’s the meaning of all of this?” Thankfully, I knew that he really wasn’t seeking a quick answer for all that that question implied. But he knew that he was part of something which was truly “awesome” in the most correct sense of the word. And he knew that he was connected somehow to that grandeur and beauty and that it held some meaning to his life.

Well, dear friends, tonight we come face to face with a grandeur and beauty greater even than that of the universe seen in the heavens on a starry night and which captivated my young friend’s questioning mind. For the Bible tells us that “even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain” God. (1 Kings 8:43)The great universe that spreads out before us and into which we can peer with awesome wonder cannot contain the limitless and eternal presence of God. Yet on that first Christmas, God, was contained in the body of a tiny infant, fragile and needy. What the universe could not contain is made present for us in the new born baby, Jesus.

For me, this is one of the great, consoling wonders of Christmas. I cannot hold the universe in my hands, but I can hold an infant. I cannot hold the stars of heaven in my hands yet in this mystery of Christmas I can hold God in my arms.  How great is the love in this mystery! How deeply it touches us, for we all know how much we long to love and to be loved in our lives. 

If God allows us this truly intimate action of holding Him then we know that God wants our love and that we are loved by God. The power that the whole universe cannot contain is present tonight for us as an infant so that, in Mary and Joseph and the shepherds, we too can reach out and hold in our arms the glory of God who now is one of us.

 

Here we find meaning for our life: we are loved, indeed above all loved by God. God has become as we are and so God shares our own life and no matter what we must live through, we are never alone. For God is Emmanuel, “God with Us,” This gives meaning to our lives and this meaning can change our lives. This can drive out those dark things which weigh our life down and can fill our darkness with brightness of God.

And so the first words we hear from God tonight are these:“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness – on them light has shone.” 

I know that many, many of us here carry with us clouds of darkness which shadow our lives. We long for the light which can dispel that darkness. We have many fears, we fragile people. Many things trouble our lives and bring with them a darkness which takes away our happiness.

As I travel throughout the diocese I hear, particularly in these times, the worries of parents whose children no longer live their Catholic faith, whose grandchildren are not baptized into the eternal life of our Risen Lord. We have to face illness and tragedies in our own lives and in the lives of those whom we love. Addictions play their destructive havoc in our lives. We worry about money and security and health. We worry that our lives have no meaning or no purpose. And we fear loneliness and the loss of hope.

Into all of this darkness, then, the words of the angel in the Gospel to the shepherds have such pertinent meaning for us:“Do not be afraid; for see – I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Christ, the Lord.”

A Saviour from the darkness, your darkness, and your darkness and your darkness and my darkness, a saviour from the empty meaningless of life, a saviour from despair and hopelessness; a saviour who is your saviour and my saviour and the Saviour of the world. A Saviour who gives light. A saviour who gives strength and hope. A saviour who gives meaning and purpose to life. A saviour who conquers death so that we may live forever.

What a glorious and amazing gift. As we approach the Altar to receive Holy Communion at this Christmas Mass, we remember that we hold in our hands the One whom Mary and Joseph and the Shepherds held that first Christmas in their hands. We hold in our hands the body of the Son of God, the body that was born as an infant child in Bethlehem. We hold in our hands what the whole universe cannot contain. This is the gift that Jesus, our brother and our Lord, gives to us over and over in a never ending promise and pledge of his love.

Here is God whom we can touch with our hands. Here is Jesus who was born in Bethlehem, a name meaning “House of Bread,” and he is now our Bread of Life. Here is Jesus, God who dwells within us and give us meaning and purpose in our life. Here is Jesus, God who shines as a light in our darkness. Here is Jesus who tells us that we do not need to be afraid, for he is our saviour who is with us now and forever.