Nativity of the Lord (Mass During the Day)
Video: YouTube Global News
My dear friends, do you ever feel guilty for enjoying yourself while others are suffering? As you know, this past Sunday, the Australian Prime Minister had to issue a public apology, after having been widely criticised for going on a family holiday in Hawaii, while his country frantically battles the catastrophic wildfires that continue to rage in three states. Abruptly cutting short his break, the embattled PM was reported as saying, When you make a promise to your kids you try and keep it, but as prime minister you have other responsibilities...
I’m not sure how you feel about this, my dear friends. Personally, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for the poor man. And it didn’t help that his apology appeared together with a moving story about the thousands of volunteer firefighters, who continue to plunge bravely into the very disaster that their own PM had been criticised for trying to escape.
My dear friends, I hope you don’t think I’m being a wet blanket by talking about such things on this joyous Christmas day. Why bring up bad news when our first reading speaks to us precisely about one who brings good news? I do it because this sharp contrast between a vacationing prime minister on the one hand, and volunteer firefighters on the other, helps me grapple with a troublesome question that I can’t help asking myself today: Should I feel guilty for celebrating Christmas while so many people around the world are suffering? What do you think, my dear friends? Does this question ever bother you? How do you address it?
It may help to begin by recalling what exactly is the good news we are gathered here to celebrate. In the first reading, the reason for rejoicing is provided by God, who comes to console a broken people. A people who have been living for long years in the darkness of exile, far away from home. To this suffering people, God promises the unimaginable joy of seeing God face to face. God promises to come to them in person, and to bring them back.
For us Christians, this inspiring promise, made in the first reading, finds its true fulfilment at Christmas. The other readings remind us that the helpless and homeless little baby, born among farm animals at Christmas, and laid by his mother in a manger, is none other than the only begotten Son of God. The Eternal Word, through whom God creates and sustains all things, and yet who humbly and heroically chooses to enter our world, by being made flesh, by assuming a human face.
Like a volunteer firefighter, plunging bravely into the frightening flames, Jesus dives into the darkness of suffering and sin, in order to draw us into the light of God’s tender Embrace. As the gospel tells us, here is a light that shines in the dark, a light that darkness could not overpower. And to all who accept him he gives power to become children of God.
I’m quite sure, my dear friends, that all this is by no means new to you. We all know it quite well. For we hear it every year. And yet, don’t we need to ponder more deeply the practical implications of this great Mystery? Especially its implications for how we ought to celebrate this feast?
For I believe there is a way of celebrating Christmas that actually distracts us from the Mystery. There is a way of celebrating Christmas that treats it as nothing more than a highly-anticipated holiday. A much-needed break from the struggles of human living. Even an escape from the many problems we may have to face on a daily basis. Which is perhaps not itself a bad thing. Given how stressful life in Singapore can be, surely we could all use a break. I know I can.
And yet, could it be that, by celebrating Christmas in this way, we are somehow shortchanging ourselves? For what happens to us after the holiday has come and gone, after all the feasting and gift exchange is over? Don’t we feel as though we have to drag ourselves back to face the difficult reality from which we have been taking a break? Doesn’t our joy often seem all too superficial and short-lived? Perhaps not unlike how I imagine the poor Australian PM might have felt after his own short-lived family holiday.
In contrast, if I were to take to heart the belief that at Christmas we welcome a light that shines in the dark, then perhaps I’ll aim to celebrate this solemn feast less as an escape, and more as a precious opportunity to encounter the One who comes to meet me precisely in the very darkness that I so often try so hard to avoid. Offering me the courage and strength I need to continue to grapple with the challenges of my own life. And even drawing me to enter in some way the darkness of others who suffer. Sharing with them the same consolation that I myself have first received from the Lord.
Perhaps this is why Christmas lasts for more than just one day. Perhaps this is also why the Pope encourages us to keep gazing intently upon the nativity scene that we have set up in the Place of Gathering. For perhaps it is only by doing this, especially over the next two weeks of the Christmas season, that I will receive the gift of encountering the light that insists on shining out in the midst of the darkness.
So should I feel guilty for celebrating Christmas while so many others are suffering? Even while the rest of our world may be burning? Only if I choose to celebrate like a vacationing prime minister. But certainly not if I do so like a volunteer firefighter.
Sisters and brothers, how will you choose to celebrate Christmas this year?
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