Cardinal's Homily for Midnight Mass

Image: RCDOW

Source: RCDOW

Cardinal Vincent Nichols gave this homily at Westminster Cathedral for Christmas Midnight Mass, 24th December 2025.

Tonight is a night of prayer and praise, shaped by one much-acclaimed event: the birth of a child.

Babies evoke in us tenderness and love - at least when they are not crying! And this is the tenor of our prayer tonight. The tenderness and love we have for this child, whose birth we celebrate, is the source of our praise. So we echo the song of the angels, giving glory to God on high.

And his coming is the great showing by God of the tenderness and love in which God holds each one of us. In the birth of this child God longs to reach out to us, to draw us back to him again. So our prayer is full of thanksgiving for this greatest of gifts.

This is the heart of our prayer tonight, a prayer of praise and thanksgiving. I hope this prayer is lodged in the heart of each one of us now.

This is a prayer of intimacy with the Lord. We are invited into this intimacy, into expressions of mutual love, simply by entering the stable and placing ourselves before him. He creates no fear or dread; he turns no one away. He asks simply that we enter in, greet him and offer our love to him.

A name given to this child is Emmanuel: God with us.

Each of those three words is crucial.

First, the word 'God'. Yes, it is God present in this child, the Creator God who gives and sustains life and purpose in all things.

Second, the word 'us'. Yes, for us God is here, for each one, for all of humanity. God has no favourites. God gives gifts to us, to every person, some hidden, some grand, but given for a unique purpose, a purpose which each is to fulfil to the best of our ability.

And, thirdly, the word, 'with'. Yes, God chooses to be with us. God does not give a list of instructions for us to follow. Nor does God give us blueprint of what we are supposed to do. No. God chooses a different way. This God, full of tenderness and love, chooses to identify totally with us, taking on our flesh in a moment of time and remaining always with us. Day by day, age by age, through his Spirit poured into our hearts, into the Church, God remains Emmanuel - God with us - so that we are never abandoned, never left alone, never beyond that embrace of tender love.

This is our happy Christmas. The declaration of this love, in the coming of Jesus, is what we celebrate this night, a night like no other.

Now, in the light of 'God with us' we might ponder what we lack, what we are 'without'. The coming of the One 'with us' is the reply to our sense of being 'without'.

We are without composure, often sensing desolation and dismay. Here we find our consolation and reassurance in the Lord.

Every day we face stories of increasing division in our society. Here, in him, we are given the source and pathway to cohesion and unity in our human family.

We fear decay and the coming of death. Here we see, in the swaddling clothes wrapping this babe, a foreshadowing of the linen clothes found on his empty tomb in his victory over death.

We know our lack of peace in our world. Here we stand before the Prince of Peace who is ready to give this gift, if we are humble enough to truly desire peace and to ask for it with sincerity and determination.

In him, then, we find our fulfilment. Yet we tend to stay away, to keep our hearts a little closed to his call, to the instinct that might beckon us on. What can we learn this night about coming to this Prince of peace, to this great little one?

The shepherds can help us. They were just getting on with their hard lives. Yet they were summoned by a sound and light show, a vision beckoning them beyond their harsh everyday reality. They came, not really knowing what to expect. But when they entered in, they fell to their knees. They were struck by an irresistible and instinctive recognition of something that was both utterly beyond them and yet belonged intimately to them. They recognised in this child, the light of truth, the light of the fulfilment of their longing for love, the light of hope in their impoverished world.

And the kings, too, coming much later. They came with their fine gifts and all their symbols of power and wealth. They were determined in following the star, pushing the limits of their knowledge, for they were drawn by an insatiable desire to know, familiar to us all. And so they found themselves before someone who was rich beyond their imagining and wise beyond their scope. They too fell to their knees, and so did their camels, at least according to the poet!

I am grateful to have the opportunity of wishing all a most peaceful and blessed Christmas. Let us be like the shepherds and the kings and give our hearts to him. In our lives too, there are angels and stars for us to follow. Let us be more attentive to those subtle promptings that come our way, often unexpectedly, that awake in us the wonder of God and our need to be closer to him.

So too, we will take our places, on our knees, before our infant King, our Lord and Master, offering him our prayer and praise. He will draw us into intimacy, closeness, which will be our inner strength and joy. For he brings light into the darkest places of our world, places of poverty and deprivation, places where power is misused and wealth sought ruthlessly to satisfy greed and acquisitiveness. We praise him and thank him for coming to be our Emmanuel and for summoning us all to a more generous way of life, generous towards each other, generous towards all in need, generous towards him, Jesus, abiding in our sisters and brothers today.

I wish you all a happy and prayerful Christmas. And I ask you, in your turn, to be angels and stars for others, drawing them, by your actions and encouragement, to this stable, to this Lord and Master, to this fountain of peace and joy. Then we spread wide the true happiness of Christmas.

Amen.