Midnight Christmas Mass was always my favorite as a kid. We would get all dressed up and enter the beautiful Church with all the decorations and the nativity scene. It’s like I can still smell the pine trees and see the glow of the Christmas lights. I think we probably all have memories that bring us back to the Christmas season. Whether it is the smell of freshly baked cookies or the Christmas ham roasting for hours, these physical signs point us back to memories and experiences that we have enjoyed.
The Gospel from the Christmas Mass during the Night proclaims, “For today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Christ and Lord. And this will be a sign for you.” This has me thinking about the importance of physical signs. Wedding rings are exchanged as a sign of commitment. Gifts are exchanged as a sign of love or friendship. In today’s Gospel we have the signs of the manger and the swaddling clothes that are communicating to us that God has become flesh. Signs are important for us.
The beautiful thing about the signs we have in the Catholic Church is that they go beyond mere symbols. Today we commemorate not just a sign of God’s love in clothes and a structure, but we commemorate God literally taking on flesh to be a physical and effective sign of his love. Not just a sign in the sense of symbolic representation, but a sign that is so real and so effective that it literally becomes what it signifies.
We see this played out in every Mass. We start with the Liturgy of the Word where we read from Scripture. But that Word, throughout the course of the Mass, becomes so living, so real, so physical, so effective, that the Word of God literally becomes flesh for us on the altar. This is the very thing we celebrate this Christmas season. We can think back to all the great symbols that plunge us deeply into beautiful memories of family life, but let’s set aside some special time today to focus on the fact that God transcends all earthly signs and literally becomes one of us. He wants to be one with you and with me. If there is nothing else we take out of our celebrations today, I think it would do us well to focus on that reality. God loves you enough that he was born in a manger to have a relationship with you and one day be with you forever in paradise.
From all of us here at Diocesan, Merry Christmas and God bless!
Daily Reading
Feast of Saint Stephen, first martyr
Reading 1 Acts 6:8-10; 7:54-59 Stephen, filled with grace and power,was working great wonders and signs among the people.Certain members of the so-called Synagogue of Freedmen,Cyrenians, and Alexandrians,and people from…
Saint of the Day
Saint Stephen
Stephen, the first Christian martyr, steadfast in faith, challenged tradition, and forgave his persecutors, leaving a powerful legacy.
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