Christmas- C

Once again, we celebrate the birth of our Lord on Christmas Day.

Once again, we sing familiar carols and hymns.

Once again, we tell familiar stories and gaze at familiar images.

Once again, we renew our commitment to “get into the spirit” of the day, the season, the celebration.

For some, the carols and hymns are background noise.

For some, the story is so much the same it is hard to hear anything new this year.

For some, the “spirit” of the season has given way to a familiarity that the celebration of Christmas has been reduced to a ritual.

Or could we say, that our celebration of Christmas has been elevated to a ritual?

A ritual as sacred and meaningful as another ritual that forms our identity as a people – the ritual that we call “the Mass?”

Like Christmas, the Mass has familiar songs and hymns.

Like Christmas, the Mass tells a familiar story with the help of familiar signs and images.

Like Christmas, the Mass invites us every time we gather to participate in it to enter into the spirit of the season and the celebration.

Like Christmas, the Mass is a ritual – a ritual that is sacred and forms our identity as the People of God.

As we reflect on the meaning of Christmas this year, it seems to me that we might do well to take a moment to reflect on how every Mass we celebrate is an opportunity not only to make Christ present in Word and Sacrament, but also every Mass we celebrate is an opportunity to see the mystery of Bethlehem present in our midst.

At Bethlehem , God's people, in the person of the shepherds, were gathered by the message of angel to hear Good News and meet the Savior, Jesus Christ.

At Mass, we too are summoned and gathered as God's People to hear Good News and meet our Lord.

At Bethlehem , the Word became flesh, and made his dwelling among us.

At Mass, the Word again becomes flesh when it is spoken in the voice of readers who are young and old, men and women, people of every race and nation.

At Bethlehem , the Son of God was placed on the wood of the manger, the first altar, which anticipated the wood of the Cross, the ultimate altar on which he would lay down his life for his friends.
At Mass, the Son of God, under the appearance of bread and wine, is placed on our altar, in the shadow of our Cross, laying himself down once more for the sake of each of us, his friends.

At Bethlehem , God-with-us took up his residence in the town whose name means “house of Bread.”

At Mass, after we are fed from the table of the Lord, God-with-us in the Eucharist takes up his residence in the tabernacle, our “house of Bread,” Bethlehem in our midst always!

Choirs of angels sang on the night of Jesus' birth. Many in the world were oblivious to what was happening in Bethlehem . Shepherds were sent as missionaries to bear good tidings to all.

At every Mass, our angelic choirs lead us in song, when, it is true, many in the world are oblivious to what is happening in our church, and we too are sent as missionaries to bring good tidings to the world.

Our Christmas manger scenes are not meant to be sentimental tableaux that we admire from affair with little impact on our lives.

The Mass, too, is not a happening from which we are detached in way that it has no impact on our lives.

Bethlehem changed the world forever – the Word made flesh, the altar of the manger, the proclamation of Good News.

The Mass too is meant to change us and the world forever – Word made flesh, altar of the Eucharist, the great commission.

Every Mass is Bethlehem made present in our midst today.

May we appreciate with ever new understanding how the wish, “May the peace of Christmas be with you always!” is a blessing that can be fulfilled in our lives every day of the year!

Thomas P. Ferguson
December 25, 2006