SOLEMNITY
OF THE LORD'S BIRTH
(Midnight Mass)
Readings; Isaiah 9:1-3, 5-6
Titus 2:11-14
Luke 2:1-14
"Today in the city of David a savior has been
born for you who is Messiah and Lord.”
Tonight, we celebrate in a most joyful mood the birth of our Lord. As we gather together and offer this sacred
sacrifice at midnight, we try to remember
and recapture once more the spirit of that night when the world celebrated the first Christmas. (Of course,
nobody is so certain as to the exactitude of
the day when the holy child was born. Others put it
on a month other than December. That is why they claim not to celebrate Christ's
birthday at all. But that is not our concern. For us Catholics, we put it on a
precise day to give a "historical" emphasis of the event. It is indeed
far better to celebrate it on a precise date than not to celebrate it at all while claiming that Christ was really
born.) Luke, the “historian” among the
evangelists, tries to present a historical event of the nativity with some details. But such historicity must not
be understood in the scientific sense. These historical details are but
intended to speak of a theological message.
Such message is the good news of all times, so significant
and applicable to every age and situation. Let us then meditate on it.
1. The circumstances that surround the birth
of Christ bespeak of God's preferential option for the poor. Luke writes: “She
wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid
him in a manger, because there was no
room for them in the inn.” This passage alone has plenty of messages to tell. It is Luke's one way of portraying how
his own people rejected the Savior. By being denied of a room even in a
situation where Mary was already at a point
of giving birth gives us that tragic and painful impression that the God-man
Jesus was not afforded a warm welcome by the
very people he chose to be his own. But although Luke has to portray this
particular rejection, it seems that the inhospitality of the people of Bethlehem is not the main focus of the
gospel. Luke's main concern is to portray
the humble human origin of the holy child. In short, the evangelist tries to
show that the promised messiah who has now come is materially poor; and if ever
he is that poor, it is all because God opts to be poor.
To be fair with the Jews, we must admit that
our judgments today are made from a distance. We must understand that they
never knew that Mary and Joseph were to be
the parents of God's only Son. Had they known it, surely would have acted
differently. Or reversely, had we been at their situation, we could have acted in the same way as they did.
And in either case, innocence or even ignorance may lighten the burden of
guilt. But Luke and every evangelist for that matter seems to consistently put
the blame on the Jews. So, we must find a better answer to the Jews' rejection
than mere innocence or ignorance. And the best answer seems to be the fact that
Joseph and Mary were poor, that is, Mary and Joseph were rejected because they
were poor. Granting the people of Bethlehem were that innocent, but had Joseph
and Mary been rich, these same people would have been doubly eager to welcome them. In that case, the holy couple could
have easily found even just a room for the night, and the holy child could have
been born in a more decent way.
2. Not only are the poverty of Christ shown
by the stable scenario, but also by the kind
of people who became his first visitors. Luke continues:
"Now there were shepherds in that region living in the fields and
keeping the night watch over their flock. The angel of the Lord appeared
to them and the glory of the lord shone around them." It was to the
shepherds that the good news of the Lord's birth was first given. They gladly
received it and came to visit the holy child in that
lowly place. But who were they to be that fortunate?
The
shepherds were among the marginalized people both religiously and economically.
Because of their profession, they could hardly meet the demands of Levitical
purity. So, most often they were considered unclean. But not only that. Being
materially less fortunate, they were prone to public suspicion of being
stealers or robbers and thus were not worthy of trust. In short, they had not
any good place in society and often despised. But all these things happened to
them because of one reason they were poor!
Ironically, these poor shepherds were the first to receive the message
of salvation. They were the typical men of goodwill on whom shone the peace of God's glory in the highest.
Meaning, they won heaven’s pleasure not because of their good dispositions but
because of God’s predilection. In his mercy and love.
God has made them good and pleasing to his sight. So, if ever the glad tidings
of the first Christmas came upon these poor
shepherds, it is all because of God's undisputed preference. In other
simple words, this is how God made manifest once more
preferential option for the poor.
3. The church's campaign for the preferential option for the poor has undeniably received some painful
resistance from various sectors. Sometimes,
it saddens us all the more to know that such resistance would come even from
the poor themselves. The mystery of the Incarnation
and the very nativity of Christ urge us to rediscover the fundamentals of our catechesis, and reassess how far these
catechetical fundamentals have reached the
fundamentals of human life too.
Every responsible parent would always look forward to the day of giving
birth to another life in this world. Especially when delivering a firstborn, all possible preparations are made.
From the mere baby gloves to both expected
and unexpected hospital bills, parents always consider
everything as their top priority and thus strive to save every penny for
it. If ever parents could not afford for
hospital services, at least they see to it that a local midwife will be there.
Every child is always precious. Every good
thing must then be given him. This is the aspiration of every responsible
parent.
Mary and Joseph were responsible parents, too. So, they also had this basic human aspiration to provide their
firstborn with the best. But our ordinary
life situation is far better than what Joseph and Mary
had. And there was one reason for it: they were just too poor to secure what they needed, and just too poor to be
entertained by the people of Bethlehem even at their extreme and urgent need.
On the part of God nothing is kept hidden. From all eternity, he knows what
will happen to his first born, to his one and only son. And being God, he has
all the best possible choices. He could have
had his son born in a palace, laid on a golden
crib and reared and up brought by the highest grandeur and majesty But no. That
was not his choice that was not his option. His option was to be poor. And
there was also one reason for it; that is, to let us realize that the preferential option for the poor is the
best of all possible choices. With this choice God
gives the best not only to his Son but also to the rest
of humanity.