Christmas Day reflection with Fr Robin Gibbons

December 25th 2021

Of all the three traditional Masses of Christmas, my favourite has always been the Aurora Mass, the Mass of Dawn, perhaps because of all the times of day we associate with the Nativity story, the dawn links to so many threads in our Christian liturgical and artistic tradition.

It has resonances of angels and light, it reaches into the great liturgical poetry of night, stars, heavenly host and their celestial music, a choir of heavenly beings singing out in the cold hills and fields, shepherds guarding flocks, the wanderings of the Magi following their light, and then the birth of that child who is the Morning Star, our Sun of Righteousness.

For this reason I have decided to meditate on the readings of this mass, for we are then half out of the excitement of the deep night, and yet not fully into the great day of celebration, for we, like so many mothers, midwives, fathers, are in that time when the excitement of the birth of any child gives way to the exhaustion of all that effort in birth, to the mixed feelings of joy, thankfulness, and yes a bitter sweet realisation that now a whole new journey lies ahead, the signposts and maps as yet unknown, and that it is a fragile journey for this baby is literally in our hands.

Our second reading takes us to that point of departure:

"But when the kindness and generous love

of God our saviour appeared

not because of any righteous deeds we had done

but because of his mercy,

he saved us through the bath of rebirth

and renewal by the holy Spirit whom he richly poured out on us

through Jesus Christ our saviour" (Tit 3:4-6)

If we unpack what is being given to us, we come to a wonderful echo of our own birth, not only in flesh but that more glorious rebirth into the family of God, grafted on to Christ. Here is the real message that needs to take over the dangerous commercialism and bizarre panoply of Santa Claus. Listening to the radio, sprinkled with the traditional carols, the announcer kept telling us just where in the world Santa Claus had landed. I am sure that none of us mind the fiction of that benevolent figure climbing down chimneys, but when it takes over all the other meanings bound up in this feast, the Saviour's birth itself, the holy tradition of St Nicholas the real Claus, the gift giving of the magi, the nativity celebrations centred on our figures of Christ, Mary, Joseph and that older, deeper and for us at this time of great environmental problem, a huge prophetic echo of the animals 'knowing' their maker before us humans can perceive the presence of the `Holy One' amongst us, which we find amplified in Isaiah's reference:' The ox knows its master, the donkey its owner's manger, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand." (Is 1:3) All these symbols are important, but only because they point away from themselves to the Christ, incarnate, born ,enfleshed amongst us. They are, if you like, the wrapping around the essential gift, not trappings but essential to the layers of perception that envelope this simplest, yet most complex of births. These are what we must strive to recover.

The letter of Titus pulls us to very simple points, God appeared amongst us because of love and mercy, so we too may be reborn, and renewed by the Holy Spirit, poured out on us by Christ.

The Gospel of this Mass, yet again, places us in the in-between time, a place we often find ourselves in our faith journey! The shepherds have ceased to see and also hear the song of the night Angels, for now in the dawn they struggle, both with what has been sung and what they have seen, so they go to seek and find their answer in the simplest of scenes; Mary with Joseph, and the baby lying in the manger! Isn't this our own journey, struggling to understand what is almost impossible to explain? Come with the shepherds then, for there is wonder and mystery there too, the shepherds are changed, from out casts they are now evangelists, angels themselves, witnessing and preaching about their experience. Their testimony becomes a means of conversion for many.

And so for us; we too hear the message of the angels in our Gospels, we too this Christmas are called again to let the Christ in, be reborn with this feast, take our places on earth alongside the beasts and birds and outcasts, and perhaps make our own the ancient and great Matins antiphon of this night: 'O great mystery and wonderful sacrament, that animals should see the newborn Lord, lying in a manger!'

May the images of your house cribs or your prayer corner nativity icons be a source of comfort and blessing all through this great season!

Christ is born, let us glorify Him!

Lectio divina

Old French Provencal Prayer at the Crib

Little Jesus of the crib
Give us the virtues of those that surround you
Make us philosophical as the fisherman
Carefree as the drummer
Merry in exploring the world as the troubadour
Eager for work as the bugler
Patient as the spinner
Kind as the ass
Strong as the ox that keeps you warm.

Robert Herrick (1591-1674)

A Christmas Carol

( sung to the King in the presence at Whitehall)

[CHORUS] What sweeter music can we bring,
Than a carol, for to sing
The birth of this our heavenly King?
Awake the voice! Awake the string!
Heart, ear, and eye, and everything.
Awake! the while the active finger
Runs division with the singer.

[VOICE 1] Dark and dull night, fly hence away,
And give the honour to this day,
That sees December turned to May.

[2] If we may ask the reason, say
The why, and wherefore, all things here
Seem like the springtime of the year?

[3] Why does the chilling Winter's morn
Smile, like a field beset with corn?
Or smell, like to a mead new-shorn,
Thus, on the sudden?

[4] Come and see
The cause, why things thus fragrant be:
'Tis He is born, whose quickening birth
Gives life and luster, public mirth,
To heaven, and the under-earth.

[CHORUS] We see Him come, and know Him ours,
Who, with His sunshine, and His showers,
Turns all the patient ground to flowers.

[1] The darling of the world is come,
And fit it is, we find a room
To welcome Him. [2] The nobler part
Of all the house here, is the heart,

[CHORUS] Which we will give Him; and bequeath
This holly, and this ivy wreath,
To do Him honour; who's our King,
And Lord of all this reveling.