Understanding our Faith

Christmas: Feast of Light

The date chosen for the celebration of the birth of Christ in Rome in the fourth century was that of the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. This was already a festival time in the Roman Empire and the choice of this date was a way of evangelising. 

The shortest day of the year is the day from which the amount of light in the day begins to increase. The implication of this alignment of Christ’s birth with the shortest day was that with him light came into the world, a light which would continue to increase. 

He shines light on the very meaning of human life and on humanity’s future. He shines light on just who God is since in him ‘we see our God made visible.’

His birth is the beginning of this new light. Just as the shortest day is the beginning of the increase of light, so is his birth the beginning of the shining of this new light. It has to expand. It has to make its way into human affairs. 

We who are honoured to have glimpsed this light and who celebrate this feast are charged with letting that light expand and find its way into human affairs.

This light cannot be doused; it comes from God. But it is given to us to be taken into whatever place we are in and whatever circumstances we may be living in and so it will spread.

There are three different Masses at Christmas, that are three sets of readings and prayers. These are rarely experienced except perhaps in monasteries and some shrines and cathedrals; parishes normally use the central texts recounting the birth of Jesus. 

The three Masses elaborate the coming of the light into the world by their relationship to the light of day. There is Mass at midnight which obviously occurs in the dark of the night. There is Mass to be celebrated at dawn aligned with the dawning of the light and then there is Mass during the day which is aligned with the full light of the shining sun. In parishes, it is usually the Mass of midnight which is celebrated at whatever time of the eve or the day. It is in that Mass that the central story of the birth of Jesus is recounted.

By Fr Frank O’Loughlin