Sermon by Father Alex McAllister SDS        Index

Christmas, Year A—2004 Homily

We rejoice tonight at this great feast of Christmas. It is a feast that comes at the very darkest time of the year and yet it is essentially a feast of light. Certainly from now on the days get longer and we look forward to the brighter days of Spring and Summer.

But Christmas is a feast of light in a much more profound sense since it celebrates the birth of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. He came to bring light and hope to our world. He opens our eyes to see things with the new light of faith.

This feast is an occasion of joy. We come to an even greater appreciation of what Christ has done for us. We rejoice in the fact that his birth in that simple manger in Bethlehem opened for us the way to salvation.

And this makes a real difference. It means that we see hope everywhere, in everything and in everybody. It means that we do not live for the moment or without any consideration for our brothers and sisters in the human family. We regard each person as of inestimable value, each person as a redeemed child of God.

As Christians we do not look only at the surface of things. Our faith enables us to look below the surface and see things as they really are; it enables us to see them in the light of eternity. We see not just our frail human nature, but also the fact that it has been redeemed by Christ and lifted above the level of the angels.

Christ comes at Christmas not as a conquering hero but as a defenceless child. He comes into a world dominated by armies and dictators. In the account of his birth given by St Matthew we read how King Herod was slyly trying to find the whereabouts of Jesus so that he could put to death this tiny child whom he regarded as a potential rival. Hundreds of innocent children were massacred as a result.

The vulnerability of the infant Jesus should make us think about all who are most vulnerable in the world today. It should make us who are his followers speak up for the unwanted child in the womb and for those elderly people who are being made to feel that they are nothing but a burden.

These are just two areas of life in modern Britain that betray the real values of our society. They reveal our culture to be essentially self-centred and materialistic.

If Christmas means anything at all it means valuing the vulnerable, it means appreciating those who are most defenceless in our society, it means lifting up the downtrodden.

As a parish we have a special ministry to two particular groups who are marginalized by our society: seafarers and women prisoners. Seafarers today invariably come from poor countries. They are an exploited group and many are on contracts sometimes ten months long and earn a pittance in wages. They send most of this money home to support their families and have little left for basic necessities.

Volunteers from this parish visit seafarers in Sharpness twice a week and bring them some human warmth and provide the simple service of selling them phone cards at a cheap rate so they can keep in contact with their families. When needed they also provide clothing such as pullovers and woolly hats to those who have come from warmer climates.

In Eastwood Park Prison our parishioners accompany the girls to mass and befriend them, and our school children send the prisoners individual Christmas cards. By these simple means we show our respect for their humanity and help them to value themselves.

We do not ignore their wrongdoings but help them to grown in their understanding of Jesus and his Gospel of love. In this way we hope to make their time in prison a real time of redemption.

And it is in simple things that the real meaning of Christmas is made known to the world—in the tiniest act of kindness, in the straightforward expression of thanks, in heartfelt remembrance in prayer.

We Christians don’t generally go in for grand gestures—we don’t need them. If the Saviour of the World came as a tiny child then it must be the little things and the little people that count the most.

Today we rejoice. We rejoice in this Christmas feast, we rejoice that Christ has come, we rejoice that he has redeemed us, we rejoice that he will come again in glory.

And for this great fast we do not sit down to a banquet but to the simplest meal of all—bread and wine. But we know this is no ordinary bread and wine, it is the body and blood of the Lord Jesus. In this Eucharist we do not merely share in food and drink but in the very life of Christ himself.

May God bless you all this Christmas day. May he fill your lives with his love and joy and may he reign in your hearts all the days of your life.