A Homily for the feast of Christmas

On behalf of the entire monastic community, I take this opportunity to wish you and all your loved ones a truly happy and holy feast of Christmas! In celebrating this great feast as worthily as we can we are acutely conscious that we can only do so because of the support of so many people throughout the world—our oblates and associates, our family and friends and other benefactors, as well of that given by those who have already gone before in the hope of enjoying the eternal feast. Midnight Mass is offered for all of your and their intentions.


+ It’s Christmas again. I am sure that we all have different aspects of this feast that warm our hearts and bring us fond memories—the carols and chants, the food, time spent with family and friends. So too, there may well be elements of the feast’s celebration that, to put it politely, fatigue us before the feast even begins—a ‘quiet’ Christmas can sometimes seem far more attractive than a festive one, with all that the festivities sometimes entail.

Yet throughout the world, the feast of Christmas, which is ancient in itself, but which gained prominence only from the 9th century onward, has become the primary Christian feast in respect of popularity, customs and devotion—eclipsing the more ancient and important feasts of Easter, Pentecost and indeed the Epiphany. We invest in Christmas in ways we do not for other times of the year—it’s part of our cultural DNA in a way that other feasts are not. We can argue that Easter is the feast of feasts, and rightly so, but it just isn’t Christmas!

And so, here we are: Christmas 2025. What are we to make of it, be out hearts full of joy or be they braced to endure the day to come? I would like to ponder a little the reality of mystery of Christmas—of the eternal Son of God becoming a man like us—for, I suggest, if amidst the cultural and familial customs that surround this feast, we stand firm on the rock of its fundamental reality, we can all the more rejoice, and indeed convert our endurance into true joy.

This reality is spoken of in the ‘Secret’ prayer at Midnight Mass, which calls it a “sacrosancta commercia”—a most holy exchange, praying that through the event of the Incarnation in which human nature is assumed by (and thus, united to) God, we humans may become more like God. That is to say, by God the Son being born of the Virgin Mary, a bridge has been built between God and man, enabling us all the more easily to access God.

This is the most holy exchange of which the Secret prayer speaks—our newly-given ability to access God directly in the person of His Incarnate Son, just as did all those who encountered Him during His public Ministry, and just as do we when we encounter Him living and acting in His Church today, most especially in the rites of the Sacred Liturgy and above all in the seven sacraments.

This is the mystery recalled in word and action in every Mass when the priest adds a drop of water to the wine in the chalice at the offertory, praying: “O God, Who in creating man didst exalt his nature very wonderfully and yet more wonderfully didst establish it anew: by the mystery signified in the mingling of this water and wine, grant us to have part in the Godhead of Him Who hath vouchsafed to share our manhood, Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Our Lord…”

For, my brothers and sisters, thanks to the reality of the Incarnation, thanks to the first Christmas, we can share in the divine nature of God! By our Baptism the gates of the bridge between God and man are opened wide to us so that we can share in, and live from, that most holy exchange. The door to the forgiveness of our sins and to eternal life is opened to us. Our Salvation has, as it were, come in person to meet us more than half-way!

This is most certainly a reason to celebrate and to sing and to feast, for it is the ultimate gift—a gift which we of ourselves could neither merit nor purchase. It is freely offered to us out of the eternal love that created each one of us out of nothing and which brought us into being so that we can love and serve Almighty God in this life, and rejoice with Him forever in the next. For this we rightly give thanks!

Yet, this gift is offered: it is not forced upon us. We are capable of rejecting it—as we know only too well. Christmas day is not the day for a sermon on sin and hell and damnation, but it is a day on which each of us should ponder ever more deeply the great gift we have been given in this most holy exchange and, in pondering it, we should not only find the motivation to rejoice and give thanks to God, but also find therein the motivation to be authentic and powerful missionaries of Jesus Christ, the Eternal Word, incarnate on this day for our salvation and the salvation of all mankind.

That this truth is not believed by many, or is even rejected, calls each of us to a purer and more powerful witness, so that, as the Gradual of the Mass of Christmas day sings, all the ends of the earth shall come to see the Salvation of God! To that end may Christmas 2025 strengthen each of us to be efficacious witnesses to the truth we celebrate! +