Christmas 2021 - Jesus is God With Us

 Merry Christmas everyone. On this great feast of Christmas, to help us celebrate the wonder and majesty and mystery Our Lord’s birth, the Church celebrates four different masses: the Christmas Eve Vigil mass, midnight mass, mass at dawn, and Christmas mass during the day. These are not just masses at different times, but each of the four masses have a slightly different focus in the prayers said and in the readings that are offered.

At the Vigil Mass we ponder the angel’s words to St. Joseph not to be afraid to take Mary and the Christ Child growing within her into his home. The prayers of the vigil Mass ask God for the grace to help us “joyfully welcome” Jesus as our Redeemer.

At Midnight Mass we contemplate the radiant glory of God as angels to the shepherds the saviors birth. As shepherds kept watch over their flock throughout the night, midnight mass gathers the Church in the midst of night to the light of Christ, and asks God that the whole of our lives may be filled with the light and gladness and joy of Christmas.

At the Mass at Dawn, the Church accompanies the Shepherds as they go in haste to Bethlehem to visit the infant Savior. At the Mass at Dawn, the Church asks God to bathe us with the radiance of the light of faith, that we may live in a manner which reflects the light of faith.

And finally at Christmas Mass during the Day, the scriptures and prayers come to a dramatic conclusion, in one of the bible’s most profound explanations of the meaning of Christmas in the prologue of St. John’s Gospel—that as the Divine Word took on the flesh of our humanity, the Church asks God to give us everything we need that we may share in his Divinity.

Even with four Masses, the majesty and mystery is so great that the Church celebrates Christmas not just on a day, but throughout over the next several weeks. The world goes back to normal, the Church is just getting started to celebrate the reason for the season.

And when we use that phrase, the “reason for the season”, what are we talking about? When Christians seek to keep Christ in Christmas and remember the reason for the season, we are essentially saying that Christmas not just about tinsel-decorated pine trees, colorful wrapping paper, reindeer, sleighs and elves, but that Christmas is centered in Bethlehem—not the North Pole or the mall or the sports arena.

Wanting to keep Christ in Christmas, prioritizing faith over the material aspects of Christmas, that’s a pretty good start. But who is he? Who are we celebrating? And why?

The eternal Son of God entered the world and was born of a virgin at Bethlehem not simply to establish a major feast day for his church, or to give a gentle nudge to get many of us to return to Church, not simply to provide an opportunity for extended families to get together, not even to initiate an annual season of generosity and giving.

A few years ago, Pope Francis gave a Christmas meditation on this topic at his Christmas morning audience at St. Peter’s in Rome. He said, At Christmas we celebrate that “God is with us… He comes to abide with mankind, he chooses earth as his dwelling place to remain with people and to be found where man passes his days in joy or in sorrow. Therefore, earth is no longer only ‘a valley of tears’; rather, it is the place where God himself has pitched his tent, it is the meeting place of God with man, of God’s solidarity with men.”

“God,” he went on, “willed to share in our human condition to the point of becoming one with us in the Person of Jesus, who is true Man and true God. There is something, however, even more surprising. The presence of God among men did not take place in a perfect, idyllic world but rather in this real world, which is marked by so many things both good and bad, by division, wickedness, poverty, arrogance and war. He chose to live in our history as it is, with all the weight of its limitations and of its tragedies. In doing so, he has demonstrated in an unequalled manner his merciful and truly loving disposition toward the human creature. He is God-with-us. Jesus is God-with-us.”

Then Pope Francis stopped his audience, as he frequently does, to make sure that what he was saying wouldn’t remain just words. “Credete questo, voi?,” he asked in italian. “Do you believe this?”

There was a smattering of “Si’s,” or “yes.” He so he asked again more boldly, “Credete questo, voi?” And you can imagine, there was a much louder response. But that’s a question Pope Francis wants to reverberate around the Christian world, including to all of us here. “Do you believe that Jesus is here with you, in all of your joys and sadness, in your triumphs and disappointments? Do you believe that he has come to meet you in your valleys to raise you up to life eternal?” 

After he asked the crowd whether they believed, Pope Francis led them in a simple act of faith. “Together let us profess,” he said, “Gesù è Dio con noi. Gesù è Dio con noi!” “Jesus is God with us! Jesus is God with us always and forever—with us in history’s suffering and sorrow.” Yes, indeed, Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us. In a world where there are so many reasons to forget that God is with us, we need Christmas, the Church needs to boldly proclaim Christmas—that God is with us.

Now, God is with us in many ways. We are able to see his fingerprints in the beauty and intelligent design of creation. We are able to sense him when he gives us strength to do what is right amidst temptations and fears. We are able to experience his closeness and his plan for our lives when we meditate on the Sacred Scriptures. We are able to sense his goodness when we engage in holy acts of charity, when we gather for reverent worship, when we keep the hours of the day holy through prayer. 

But there is one way above all others by which Christ remains with us. Jesus is truly and substantially present for us in his body and blood in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. He instituted the Sacrament of the Eucharist that he may be with us, not just in our minds or the sentiments of our hearts, but truly, really, substantially present with his Church for all ages.

The Eucharist is Emmanuel, God-with-us. He is here in every tabernacle of every Catholic church and chapel in the world. And he is made present wherever Holy Mass is celebrated by a validly ordained Catholic priest.  The same God who was in Mary’s womb we receive in our bodies at Holy Communion. The same Jesus whom the wise men traveled such great distances over several months to adore we have the same privilege to worship — and all we have to do is hop in our cars and drive short distances. 

Being able to be with Jesus in the Holy Eucharist is the greatest privilege this side of heaven, when we have the chance to do something that even those present in Bethlehem couldn’t even dream of. They were able to adore the God-man from the outside. But, the Catholic faithful, who have confessed their sins and are in a state of grace are able to receive and adore him on the inside, when we receive Him in Holy Communion.

Holy Communion enables us to know Jesus’ presence with us “in the joys and sorrows” as Holy Father Pope Francis said—throughout all of the challenges of our lives—in dealing with disease, and poverty, and family division. We begin to become sharers in His Divinity, through the Eucharist—and the Divine goodness and strength that flows from Him.

Let every heart prepare him room, we sing, in that great Christmas song, Joy to the World. The heart that has prepared room for him, and worthily receives him in the Eucharist is able to be filled with joy even in the darkest of nights, in prison cells, in hospital rooms, in funeral parlors, on cold and dingy sidewalks. 

If you’ve been away from Church for some time, let tonight be a new beginning. Make a good confession, that you may know again the joy of receiving him. And may all of us profoundly celebrate the true reason for the season, God with us. Lift up your heads, raise and widen the gates of your hearts, that the King of glory may enter, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.