Homily for the Mass During the Day, Christmas 2002

—Fr. Timothy W. Castor

The solemnity of our Lord’s birth is privileged to have four distinct Masses, each with its own set of prayers and readings, and each with its own theme and message. The first of these, the vigil Mass, forms a bridge between Advent and Christmastide. The theme at this liturgy is the birth of Jesus as the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy and promise. But the birth has not yet taken place: we’re still looking ahead to the great event. At the Midnight Mass, we witness the birth of Jesus as we join Mary and Joseph in the stable at Bethlehem. Then we hear the great hymn of praise from the Angels—"Glory to God in the highest"—as they proclaim Messiah’s birth to the shepherds. At the Mass of Dawn, we accompany the shepherds to the manger in Bethlehem, and with them, offer our praise and adoration to the newborn King. We follow them as they leave to proclaim the message of salvation to the whole world.

And at this, the Mass During the Day, the fourth and last Mass of Christmas, we discover precisely what that message is. It is the great good news that God has become man for our salvation—it is the message of the incarnation. We read the awesome and beautifully profound prologue of St. John’s Gospel—which is in reality a brief theological treatise on the incarnation—this all-important doctrine which is at the center of our Catholic faith, upon which so much of our faith depends, and from which so much flows.

"In the beginning was the Word," Saint John tells us. This "Word" of which he speaks is, in fact, the very essence of God the Father, it is the divine Logos, proceeding from the Father as speech proceeds from a person’s lips. But unlike the ideas and concepts which form our words, this Word is a Person—eternally begotten of the Father, his Word is the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, God the Son. The word—the Son—proceeds from the Father, enters his own creation, and becomes the light for this dark world. "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."

This light, this word, this eternal Son of the eternal Father, became fully human—a man—by becoming the Son of Mary. And he did this without diminishing in the least his divine nature. And so, to the wonderment of all creation, something new comes into being: Jesus Christ, the God-man, fully human and fully divine. And suddenly, between heaven and earth, there’s a bridge—a bridge which never existed before, and which never can be destroyed. Heaven has come down to earth—God has assumed our human nature so that we might share in his divine nature. This is what salvation means; this is what Saint John meant when he wrote, "to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name." Through the incarnate and only begotten Son of God, we can become adopted sons and daughters of God—brothers and sisters of our Lord Jesus Christ.

If we believe this—that God has used the ordinary stuff of creation to be the means of our salvation—then everything else in our Catholic faith makes sense. The Sacraments, for example. Here, ordinary things—water, oil, bread, wine—are transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit to become the vehicles of divine grace, the very means by which our spiritual life is given to us, sustained and nourished. To put it another way, if God can become man, then it is a small thing for bread and wine to be transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ.

"The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.... from his fullness we have all received, grace in place of grace." This is truly the message of Christmas. It is not merely a happy holiday to think about the angels and the shepherds and the tiny Christ child in the manger. But more importantly, it is an occasion to meditate upon and to give humble thanks to Almighty God for the incarnation of his divine Son and the salvation which is now made available for the entire human race. It is for this reason that, when we recite the creed today, and when we say the words, "by the power of the Holy Spirit he was born of the Virgin Mary and became man," we will not merely bow as we normally do, but we will fall to our knees in profound adoration. The Church asks us to do this today in recognition of the truth of the incarnation, and as a sign of our humble acceptance of that truth. May the Lord make this truth always live in our hearts, that the darkness of sin and death may be forever banished by the light of Christ.

© 2002, Rev. Timothy W. Castor