In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
On this blessed day, December 25, we celebrate the Birth of the Savior, Our Lord Jesus Christ. And even at midnight, we say that it is already Christmas Day. Why? Because it is the moment when Our Savior was born, the precise moment when the true Sun that gives true light to the world rose, the exact moment when dawn broke and the rays of this divine Sun dispelled the
darkness, not the darkness that enveloped the world during the night, but the darkness that enveloped the minds and hearts of men.
That is why in the Catholic world, the civil day begins at midnight, and the years are counted from the year of the Birth of the true light. This light shone so brightly that even non-Catholic countries had to adopt these customs. Today, then, we celebrate the 2025th anniversary of the Birth of Our Lord.
Another remarkable thing about this day is that today each priest can and even must celebrate 3 Masses, each with different readings and prayers. One at midnight, one in the early morning, and one at noon. Why? Because today we also celebrate the triple Birth of Jesus Christ. Triple Birth? Can someone be born three times in one day? Let's see.
The first is the birth of Christ according to the flesh, birth in time as Man. To this birth corresponds the Midnight Mass.
The moment foreseen from all eternity had arrived. Mary felt the supreme moment arrive. And the Child she carried in her most pure womb came forth as a ray of light pierces a piece of glass. The Child comes out and appears stretched out in front of his Mother, in the manger, with his arms stretched out towards her.
This extraordinary way of being born can only be explained by two Persons involved:
• by the Mother, who was conceived without stain of original sin, and therefore does not deserve the punishments for Eve and the other mothers as far as maternity is concerned.
• by the Son who is a Divine Person, and is born neither of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but conceived and born by the work and grace of the Holy Spirit.
As soon as He is born as Man, the holy Angels fill the sky like so many stars and pay homage to their Creator made Man.
If a multitude of angels were singing in heaven, why did so few men pay homage to Him? Because men fell asleep. The problem was not the material night, i.e. the absence of the sun, but the spiritual night.
In this spiritual night, there were only 2 kinds of men: Those who watch but to sin. How many sins are committed by day. But how many more are committed by night, under apparent protection of darkness, as if God could not see without the light of day.
Those who sleep in forgetfulness of God. Not intellectual forgetfulness, for since the return from the Babylonian captivity and since the Maccabean wars the Jews had already learned part of their lesson: fidelity to God and to the true religion, fidelity to the fulfillment of religious duties.
The Jews knew that several prophecies were being fulfilled in those times. So what happened? It was practical forgetfulness, for although many prided themselves on having religion and fulfilling religion, there were not many who lived by religion. Because of this spiritual night, very few were worthy to welcome the Prince of Peace, the one who came to bring peace between heaven and men.
The second is the spiritual birth of Christ in the heart of each baptized soul. To this birth corresponds the Mass of the dawn. It is the birth that took place in the hearts of the shepherds, who are, in practice, our fathers in the faith. They accept and love a humbled God, a God made child.
They had no baptismal certificate but they had the same or perhaps greater faith than we have and they have received the same or perhaps greater grace than we have. The simplicity of their hearts and the fact that they promptly went to the cave of Bethlehem, and adored upon seeing a Child wrapped in a manger, are proof that they have not fallen into the practical oblivion of God.
They heard the Angels sing: “Glory to God in the highest and peace to men of good will” What is good will? It is the heart cleansed from the filth of sin and attachments to sin, and then heart made simple by humility.
Therefore, all those who, after having purified their souls and having been freed from the slavery of flesh and blood, after having renounced everything they had of sinful man, want to open their hearts to the divine Word, to that Light which shines in the darkness and which the darkness does not understand, are born with Jesus Christ, are born of God; they begin a new life in this mystery just as the Son of God did, a new life through faith and, for Catholics, through grace and the Sacraments.
It is not for nothing that the Church in ancient times obliged the faithful on the feast of Christmas to go to Confession and receive communion as in the Easter season.
Because it is about receiving the Savior under our roof, in spite of our unworthiness, in this Christmas feast and not to repeat the treatment that the inhabitants of Bethlehem gave him: “I am sorry but there is no room in my inn”, nor, much less, to want to persecute and kill the Child Jesus as Herod sought to kill him, although in our case not with a material sword but with the sword of sin. It is a matter of not repeating what St. John said in his Gospel: “He came to his own and his own did not receive him”.
The third is the eternal birth of the Son in the bosom of the Father. The midday Mass corresponds to this birth.
The Word made flesh, made Man, is God the Son. He is God the Son because he is eternally begotten, eternally born of God the Father. “Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.” God is. The existence of God, the infinite happiness of God, the acts or actions of God, the divine life of God, are one and the same thing.
Hence our eternal happiness in Heaven consists in making us partakers of the divine life of God, our eternal happiness consists in the vision and contemplation of this eternal generation of the Son by his Father, which is impossible if we do not become children of God by grace, which, in turn, is impossible if the Son of God by nature is not born and does not live in our hearts by sanctifying grace.
The Son of God is born as a passible, mortal, simple Child. Why? So that we may learn humility, simplicity. So that we may have a heart without duplicity. Because only in this way will we be able to recognize our weakness, our indigence and misery. He became a Child so that we can look at ourselves as in a mirror, and see ourselves as we really are.
For these are the first dispositions necessary for Him to be born and live spiritually in us, and thus to be able to make us sharers in His divine life, to make us contemplate His eternal birth, that is to say, to save us.
