Christmas, Year A
First Reading: midnight Is 9:2-4, 6-7; dawn Is 62:11-12; day Is 52:7-10
Second Reading: midnight Ti 2:11-14; dawn Ti 3:4-7; day Heb 1:1-6
Gospel Reading: midnight Lk 2:1-16; dawn Lk 2:15-20; day Jn 1:1-18
“Do you realize that Mary’s Son is God?” a non-Catholic teenager asked her Catholic friend eagerly. “Did you know that?”
This teenager had just realized the truth.
This story was told by the late Archbishop James F. Carney in his 1987 Christmas message.
That question, he said, is “the question behind all other questions,” the question “the apostles and the evangelists put to their world,” the question that “the Church must and will address to man in the third millennium,” the “prime question that the Church will put to the world in [its] renewed evangelization.”
It is “the question of the year,” he said.
For us, as we celebrate Christmas in the year of our Lord (anno Domini) 2022, it is the question of the moment.
Are we convinced that Mary’s Son is God, as we are convinced that things will fall if we drop them or that day succeeds night? Do we live every moment so as to take it into account, as we take into account our need to eat and sleep? Do we remember it in all our thoughts, words, actions, feelings, and plans?
Do we know, as the Council of Ephesus reaffirmed in 431 AD, that “Jesus Christ, who took human nature within Mary’s womb, indeed existed before she did, before her ancestor David, before Abraham, before Adam, before the earth was formed; that he is the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity,” truly and wholly God, truly and wholly Man?
“Do we realize that Mary’s Son is God?”
Can we answer “yes” unequivocally? Can we focus at the same time on the near and the far, the material and the spiritual, the human and the divine? Can we look at a tiny newborn Baby lying in a feeding-trough for cattle and, at the same time, see God?
At this time of the year, especially, we have to make the effort to do so. If we do not, we miss the whole point of Christmas.
What happened at Christmas is the central event of all time and space. As we hear in the Gospel Reading for the Christmas midnight Mass, “there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were terrified.
“But the angel said to them, ‘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 Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find the Child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.’
“And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in highest Heaven!’” -- Gloria in excelsis Deo!
The Creator of the universe had become one of His creatures. The Author of the play had walked on to the stage as one of the characters. The myth that pervaded some ancient religions had become fact. The Word had become Flesh. Prophecies and promises had been fulfilled. Infinity had become finite.
Do we realize that Mary’s Son is God? Even Mary must have found it difficult. However, she “treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.”
We must do the same. Let us begin, at Christmas Mass this year, by gazing upon the Host and repeating the words of St. Thomas, “My Lord and my God!” and those of the man whose son Jesus healed, “I do believe! Help my lack of trust!”
Let us not hurry away from the church, but kneel at the nativity scene to ponder the question of the day, of the century, of all time and eternity: Do we realize that Mary’s Son is God?
Father Hawkswell is again teaching The Catholic Faith in Plain English, with new insights. The whole course is available in written form and, one session per week, in YouTube form at beholdvancouver.org/catholic-faith-course. Father is also teaching the course in person: on Sundays at 2 p.m. in the John Paul II Pastoral Centre, 4885 Saint John Paul II Way, Vancouver (33rd and Willow); and on Mondays at 10 a.m. in St. Anthony’s Church hall, 2347 Inglewood Ave., West Vancouver. There is no class next week or the week after.