Midnight Mass 2008

These are pretty dark days, both literally and figuratively.
Hunger, poverty, war, and violence
seem to pervade our world—
and the reality of the struggling economy
daily seems to cast a darker shadow over our lives.

Into this darkness, tonight, God shines Light.

You see, things are not much different today
than they were two thousand years ago
on that first cold dark Christmas night, in Palestine,
in the year that Christ was born.

Back then people fought over grain and salt rather than oil,
But generally speaking few modern issues are really new problems.

And the more things change the more they stay the same—
in every age man has responded
to the uncertainty of his existence
and the evil that exists in the world with violence.

Attempting control his world and to solve his problems
with brute force.

Violence, in the form of war, selfishness and greed
But also in subtler forms, like the ideologies of the 20th century,
which promised peace and prosperity
but in reality simply disguised the age old idea idea
that might makes right;
treating people like problems, pieces of a puzzle to be rearranged by force of will on the playing board of life.


Indeed even today, as weary as we are of this type of violence, new ideologies are quickly gaining popularity,
even as the old ideologies loose power.

Today in a world weary of ideologies;
strangely ideas like the ideology of tolerance have become
the fashionable human solution to the darkness of this world.

In the end though, these new ideologies
like all the rest are just another type of violence,
which can not give the world light
because they come from a world in darkenss.

Tonight, into this dark world of ours,
which yearns for peace and fulfillment,

our loving Father reaches out his hand—
giving those who walk in darkness a great light.

On Christmas we celebrate the alternative to the violence
that throughout history has promised to solve our problems,
but delivered only death, destruction, misery, and shame.

The alternative to violence is true love.
Unto us a Child is born, unto us a child is given
and they shall call him…the prince of peace.

On Christmas we don’t celebrate the birthday
of a leader, guru or moral teacher
who will teach us how to live in peace.

We celebrate the Nativity of Jesus Christ, who,
though fully a man, was also fully God!
We celebrate a cosmic event,
which for us Christians is the defining event of history.

God, who created all things and is almighty,
all-knowing, eternal, and unknowable,
who cannot be measured, circumscribed, or contained
tonight is born of the Virgin Mary.

God is Love, St. John tells us and tonight
Love is born into the World, takes flesh and becomes man
to offer us an alternative to all the systems
that promise peace by changing the world.

The solution to all of the world’s problems isn’t violence,
it’s a person, named Jesus.

We have been told that change is coming.
Tonight God offers us the possibility to change the world,
not by changing laws or governments,
not by changing others, but changing ourselves.

God became man, so that man could become God.
God promises peace by giving us the power to be truly human.

In Jesus, the Father demonstrates the fact
that perfection and divinity are not incompatible with humanity.
We can become like God. We can become love.

Violence and ideologies miss the point
because they try to change external realities
without first changing human hearts.
Even when well intentioned they treat people like things,
like problems to be organized or moved.
We see this in the idea of Tolerance,
which claims that all violence and strife will end
if there is no truth—
failing to realize that you can’t make war on truth,
only on the people who believe in it.
And that without truth, there is no reason not to make war!

In the end tolerance is like separating two fighting children.
In the short term this solution is sure to work,
but it doesn’t solve the problem it just defers it
because unless love, and with it a mutual search for truth,
fills the void of hate, distrust, and misunderstanding
the next time they come together nothing will have changed.

Tolerance is not a Christian idea,
because tolerance is the opposite of love: it’s enforced apathy.

Christians are not called to ignore or tolerate evil;
we are called to hate it, because we love God.

Moreover, we are not called to tolerate our brothers who do evil, but to love them.

As GK Chesterton once said, the Catholic:
uniquely hates the world enough to see that it needs changing,
and loves the world enough to see that it’s worth fixing.

Fixing, not by changing laws or governments,
but by changing hearts.

We can do this and live this way because on Christmas
Love is born into the world and into our hearts.

Love changes the world not by treating our brothers and sisters like chess pieces to be played,
but by treating them like God’s children to be loved.

Tomorrow during the Christmas day Mass
the Church will proclaim the prologue of the Gospel of John.
In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God…
and the Word became man and dwelt among us!

God does not tolerate the evil and darknes of the World
Rather He loves even those who do evil.

He does not let man freely walk down
the paths to distruction, we have chosen for ourselves.
Rather, he sends His Son, the Word of God.

This is God’s response to all those people who cry out to God
Asking Him to do something about the evil in the world.

God doesn’t use violence to solve the worlds problems as we may wish
Rather, He sends His Son, His Word, to heal the world’s heart.

In the Christian tradition this concept
of the Word was of unimaginable importance.

The Word is just not a word,
but the first and the last Word,
the totality of God explanation of himself.
And the reason for the existence of the existence itself.


Tonight God sends the Plan, the master plan for existence.
Not to teach us right from wrong,
but to recreate and restore us, and with us all of creation
to God’s orginal plan—to restore man to Paradise.
A paradise that begins with us in our hearts!

For man this means Jesus restored us
to the image and likeness of God, in which we were created!
The image and likeness of God, who is LOVE.

Jesus was born, to restore man to man.
To bring us who were in darkness
Not just a light, but the source of all light.

Tonight:The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light;

And being born He doesn’t just give us a candel
But he offered us a nuclear reaction,
brighter than the lights of this Church,
a perpetual source of light within us,
so that we can help ourselves.

This is the mystery at the center of our Catholic Christian faith
We have come here on this cold winter night
to remember and celebrate it!

God, became Man, taking on
our body, our soul, our nature, our mind, our will
taking on everything that is truly human.

So that we could see that man could become God,
So that the unthinkable could become a possibility.
which at Easter and here on this altar, could become a reality.
The Divinity that God unites with humanity today
Is the Divinity united with humanity in the person of Jesus
that He offers up for us on the Cross—
which we receive from this altar today
and which we know will lead to the resurrection tomorrow.

Today we are challenged by God to become who we truly are
To become what we eat and receive.

It is in this transformation of ourselves, into Love
Into God’s image and likeness
that God proposes the solution to the worlds problems.
Sadly it has never been tried on a large scale!
And yet tonight God offers it again.

God will not use violence to solve the worlds problems
Not because he can’t but because
Violence breeds slaves
While love makes us sons and daughters by adoption.

Into the darkness of the World, Tonight God becomes one of us
Not strong and terrible, but meek and mild.
And yet the Lord of Lords, the King of Kings, the Prince of Peace

Don’t look for hope or comfort elsewhere
because there is none to be found!

Therefore, on this dark Christmas night,
let us thank God with the angels and saints
for the true gift of Christmas: Jesus, the source of all Light.

Gloria, in excelsis Deo!



My Brothers and sisters, tonight Light is born into the world,
the Light that shines in the darkness
and which cannot be overcome by it.
And so we gather in this Church,
whose beautiful lights are a poor symbol
of the True Light born today, Jesus Christ.

We welcome all those who are visiting with us from afar
And those who have been away from the Church.
Tonight the Lord offers each of us
The opportunity to give the Holy Family shelter
from the Cold and Dark of the night
and by doing so to allow Christ to be born into our hearts

If we let Him, God will transformed us tonight
into the people that God made us to be,
and that deep down we want to be.

And so in order that we might worthily celebrate
these sacred mysteries, let us call to mind our sins
confident that God so loved the world
that He sent His only begotten son,
so that we might not perish,
but have eternal life.