This being the Christmas season, it is worth recalling that this word in English is a conjoining of the words “Christ” and “Mass.”

Today, many in society wish to take both Christ and the Mass out of Christmas and make it merely a secular holiday of tolerant goodwill for a secular religion based on material prosperity. Joy to the world would not be because the Lord is come, but a joy we cause ourselves precisely by ignoring the Lord and the Mass.

It is true that there is good cheer accompanying this feast, and we give gifts. But the good cheer is caused by the fact that in the darkest time of the year, the light begins again to break forth. Christ is born, and God enters the world as a tiny child, helpless and poor.

The gifts are a symbol of the gifts the Magi gave him and the charity which this new light of joy in grace brings to our souls. Joy abounds because in this “Christ Mass” we focus on the three births of Christ: in eternity, in time and in us. The three Masses of Christmas reflect this: at midnight, at dawn and during the day.

“The Lord said to me: You are my Son. It is I who have begotten you this day.” This entrance antiphon for the Christmas midnight Mass expresses the first birth of Christ in eternity. It is sung at midnight because it emphasizes the eternal birth of the Word from the Father.

“The Lord said to me.” He is “begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father.” There is no distinction is time, adoration or dignity between the Son and the Father in eternity. He who is Word is also Son: “This day,” the eternal today, “I have begotten you.”

The only difference is the Father is infinity without origin; the Son is infinity with origin. This birth is the origin of all the others and calls us to meditate on eternity and how the spiritual gift of grace brings us a new perspective on life.

At a certain point in time, this Eternal Word, the second Person of the Trinity, took a second nature to himself. This is his second birth in time. He was born in simplicity and the poverty of the stable.

“Today a light will shine upon us, for the Lord is born for us, and will be called Wondrous God, Prince of Peace, Father of Future Ages, and his reign will be without end.” This is the entrance antiphon for the Mass at dawn. In the stable, time was rent asunder, and the sheer grace of the Divine light poured into a world darkened by sin. “He came unto his own, and his own did not receive him.” This was due to indifference to religion and indifference caused by exaggerated materialism.

Jesus had the door slammed in the face of his mother and his infancy in the inn, and he became a hunted criminal by society before he reached age 2. Now, in an age that emphasizes only feeling good and control through gadgets, there is no place for a spiritual revolution. In the age of texting and tweets, there is no space for solitude and deep relationships. God has completely taken a back seat, if one thinks about him at all. You can curse God, but not pray to him, our society says. Religion is privatized, and grace has no real influence on ordinary life.

Pope Francis addresses this mistake in his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel): “Consequently, no one can demand that religion should be relegated to the inner sanctum of personal life, without influence on societal and national life, without concern for the soundness of civil institutions, without a right to offer an opinion on events affecting society” (183).

Christ’s birth in time cannot be ignored. It strikes at the heart of the soul and, through the soul, at our image of time itself. All of time can now be looked upon in the light of eternity. This makes the world ever young, because the passages of the years lead man into a human future in eternity and do not reflect the senility of a world with no hope because of sin.

The shepherds representing the poor and the Jews run to the poor crib to do him homage. The Magi representing the wealthy, the scholars and the Gentiles are led by nature through the star of believing to Jerusalem, for salvation is from the Jews. There, they consult to Scriptures that, in turn, lead them to the crib in adoration.

These two births of Christ are oriented in us to the third birth, his birth in the manger of our souls through sanctifying grace.

The Mass during the day begins: “A Child is born for us, and a Son is given to us; his scepter of power rests on his shoulder, and his name will be called Messenger of Great Counsel” (Isaiah 9:5).

Through the fulfillment of his passion and resurrection, the light brought into the world from eternity in the dawn of the Incarnation now is brought to full day within us. “Of his fullness, we have all received grace in return for grace.”

Pope Francis has pointed out that once we experience the light of grace within us, this means that we must respond accordingly in deeds. Through the power of the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, grace is nourished in our hearts, but the full flowering of grace demands that we cooperate and allow that grace to develop into mission to others. This is done through the virtues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Chief among these virtues are justice and charity.

Our free wills must be prepared through embracing the duties of our state with love. This means that grace must inspire and cause all that we do. It also means that in all of the practical activities of life, (business, the family, the Church, relaxation) we must not be overly concerned to just reduce our Christian witness to a frenzy of activity or bureaucracy. This reduction can degenerate into what Pope Francis calls “pastoral acedia” (82), which is the modern version of the sin of sloth.

The joy of the Christmas crib concentrating on redemption and God is replaced by what Pope Francis calls a “gray pragmatism of the daily life of the Church, in which all appears to proceed normally, while, in reality, faith is wearing down and degenerating into small-mindedness” (83).

Instead, our souls must be a manger in which Christ does not find either the rejection of indifference or the persecution of Herod. Instead, by rejecting our tendencies to disordered egos and our lack of concern for others, the Christian should say by this third birth of grace in the heart: “I am a mission on this earth; that is the reason why I am here in this world.”

When Christ comes into the manger of your soul this Christmas, will he find a warm welcome? Will he find joy?

Or, instead, because of the indifference of secular materialism or the denial of the value of the individual, will he find the door of the inn slammed in his face again?

“And heaven and nature sing, and heaven and nature sing, and heaven and nature sing!”

Dominican Father Brian Mullady has a doctorate in sacred theology and is a mission preacher
and adjunct professor at Holy Apostles Seminary in Cromwell, Connecticut.