MIDNIGHT MASS
SOLEMNITY OF THE NATIVITY OF THE LORD
HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
Saint Peter's Basilica
Thursday, 25 December 2008
Dear Brothers and
Sisters,
"Who is like the Lord our
God, who is seated on high, who looks far down upon the heavens and the earth?"
This is what Israel sings in one of the Psalms (113 [112], 5ff.), praising God’s
grandeur as well as his loving closeness to humanity. God dwells on high, yet he
stoops down to us… God is infinitely great, and far, far above us. This is our
first experience of him. The distance seems infinite. The Creator of the
universe, the one who guides all things, is very far from us: or so he seems at
the beginning. But then comes the surprising realization: The One who has no
equal, who "is seated on high", looks down upon us. He stoops down. He sees us,
and he sees me. God’s looking down is much more than simply seeing from above.
God’s looking is active. The fact that he sees me, that he looks at me,
transforms me and the world around me. The Psalm tells us this in the following
verse: "He raises the poor from the dust…" In looking down, he raises me up, he
takes me gently by the hand and helps me – me! – to rise from depths towards the
heights. "God stoops down". This is a prophetic word. That night in Bethlehem,
it took on a completely new meaning. God’s stooping down became real in a way
previously inconceivable. He stoops down – he himself comes down as a child to
the lowly stable, the symbol of all humanity’s neediness and forsakenness. God
truly comes down. He becomes a child and puts himself in the state of complete
dependence typical of a newborn child. The Creator who holds all things in his
hands, on whom we all depend, makes himself small and in need of human love. God
is in the stable. In the Old Testament the Temple was considered almost as God’s
footstool; the sacred ark was the place in which he was mysteriously present in
the midst of men and women. Above the temple, hidden, stood the cloud of God’s
glory. Now it stands above the stable. God is in the cloud of the poverty of a
homeless child: an impenetrable cloud, and yet – a cloud of glory! How, indeed,
could his love for humanity, his solicitude for us, have appeared greater and
more pure? The cloud of hiddenness, the cloud of the poverty of a child totally
in need of love, is at the same time the cloud of glory. For nothing can be more
sublime, nothing greater than the love which thus stoops down, descends, becomes
dependent. The glory of the true God becomes visible when the eyes of our hearts
are opened before the stable of Bethlehem.
Saint Luke’s account of the
Christmas story, which we have just heard in the Gospel, tells us that God first
raised the veil of his hiddenness to people of very lowly status, people who
were looked down upon by society at large – to shepherds looking after their
flocks in the fields around Bethlehem. Luke tells us that they were "keeping
watch". This phrase reminds us of a central theme of Jesus’s message, which
insistently bids us to keep watch, even to the Agony in the Garden – the command
to stay awake, to recognize the Lord’s coming, and to be prepared. Here too the
expression seems to imply more than simply being physically awake during the
night hour. The shepherds were truly "watchful" people, with a lively sense of
God and of his closeness. They were waiting for God, and were not resigned to
his apparent remoteness from their everyday lives. To a watchful heart, the news
of great joy can be proclaimed: for you this night the Saviour is born. Only a
watchful heart is able to believe the message. Only a watchful heart can instil
the courage to set out to find God in the form of a baby in a stable. Let us now
ask the Lord to help us, too, to become a "watchful" people.
Saint Luke tells us,
moreover, that the shepherds themselves were "surrounded" by the glory of God,
by the cloud of light. They found themselves caught up in the glory that shone
around them. Enveloped by the holy cloud, they heard the angels’ song of praise:
"Glory to God in the highest heavens and peace on earth to people of his good
will". And who are these people of his good will if not the poor, the watchful,
the expectant, those who hope in God’s goodness and seek him, looking to him
from afar?
The Fathers of the Church
offer a remarkable commentary on the song that the angels sang to greet the
Redeemer. Until that moment – the Fathers say – the angels had known God in the
grandeur of the universe, in the reason and the beauty of the cosmos that come
from him and are a reflection of him. They had heard, so to speak, creation’s
silent song of praise and had transformed it into celestial music. But now
something new had happened, something that astounded them. The One of whom the
universe speaks, the God who sustains all things and bears them in his hands –
he himself had entered into human history, he had become someone who acts and
suffers within history. From the joyful amazement that this unimaginable event
called forth, from God’s new and further way of making himself known – say the
Fathers – a new song was born, one verse of which the Christmas Gospel has
preserved for us: "Glory to God in the highest heavens and peace to his people
on earth". We might say that, following the structure of Hebrew poetry, the two
halves of this double verse say essentially the same thing, but from a different
perspective. God’s glory is in the highest heavens, but his high state is now
found in the stable – what was lowly has now become sublime. God’s glory is on
the earth, it is the glory of humility and love. And even more: the glory of God
is peace. Wherever he is, there is peace. He is present wherever human beings do
not attempt, apart from him, and even violently, to turn earth into heaven. He
is with those of watchful hearts; with the humble and those who meet him at the
level of his own "height", the height of humility and love. To these people he
gives his peace, so that through them, peace can enter this world.
The medieval theologian
William of Saint Thierry once said that God – from the time of Adam – saw that
his grandeur provoked resistance in man, that we felt limited in our own being
and threatened in our freedom. Therefore God chose a new way. He became a child.
He made himself dependent and weak, in need of our love. Now – this God who has
become a child says to us – you can no longer fear me, you can only love me.
With these thoughts, we
draw near this night to the child of Bethlehem – to the God who for our sake
chose to become a child. In every child we see something of the Child of
Bethlehem. Every child asks for our love. This night, then, let us think
especially of those children who are denied the love of their parents. Let us
think of those street children who do not have the blessing of a family home, of
those children who are brutally exploited as soldiers and made instruments of
violence, instead of messengers of reconciliation and peace. Let us think of
those children who are victims of the industry of pornography and every other
appalling form of abuse, and thus are traumatized in the depths of their soul.
The Child of Bethlehem summons us once again to do everything in our power to
put an end to the suffering of these children; to do everything possible to make
the light of Bethlehem touch the heart of every man and woman. Only through the
conversion of hearts, only through a change in the depths of our hearts can the
cause of all this evil be overcome, only thus can the power of the evil one be
defeated. Only if people change will the world change; and in order to change,
people need the light that comes from God, the light which so unexpectedly
entered into our night.
And speaking of the Child
of Bethlehem, let us think also of the place named Bethlehem, of the land in
which Jesus lived, and which he loved so deeply. And let us pray that peace will
be established there, that hatred and violence will cease. Let us pray for
mutual understanding, that hearts will be opened, so that borders can be opened.
Let us pray that peace will descend there, the peace of which the angels sang
that night.
In Psalm 96 [95], Israel,
and the Church, praises God’s grandeur manifested in creation. All creatures are
called to join in this song of praise, and so the Psalm also contains the
invitation: "Let all the trees of the wood sing for joy before the Lord, for he
comes" (v. 12ff.). The Church reads this Psalm as a prophecy and also as a task.
The coming of God to Bethlehem took place in silence. Only the shepherds keeping
watch were, for a moment, surrounded by the light-filled radiance of his
presence and could listen to something of that new song, born of the wonder and
joy of the angels at God’s coming. This silent coming of God’s glory continues
throughout the centuries. Wherever there is faith, wherever his word is
proclaimed and heard, there God gathers people together and gives himself to
them in his Body; he makes them his Body. God "comes". And in this way our
hearts are awakened. The new song of the angels becomes the song of all those
who, throughout the centuries, sing ever anew of God’s coming as a child – and
rejoice deep in their hearts. And the trees of the wood go out to him and exult.
The tree in Saint Peter’s Square speaks of him, it wants to reflect his
splendour and to say: Yes, he has come, and the trees of the wood acclaim him.
The trees in the cities and in our homes should be something more than a festive
custom: they point to the One who is the reason for our joy – the God who comes,
the God who for our sake became a child. In the end, this song of praise, at the
deepest level, speaks of him who is the very tree of new-found life. Through
faith in him we receive life. In the Sacrament of the Eucharist he gives himself
to us – he gives us a life that reaches into eternity. At this hour we join in
creation’s song of praise, and our praise is at the same time a prayer: Yes,
Lord, help us to see something of the splendour of your glory. And grant peace
on earth. Make us men and women of your peace. Amen.
