RC Diocese of Argyll & the Isles

Coming into the unusual surroundings of celebrating our Christmas Masses in the hall, I am reminded of visits to the parishes of Fr Colin MacInnes in Ecuador – he had big main churches in the centre but then had a cluster of smaller, more sparse and simpler ones in the outlying areas of his parishes. Perhaps, our move this year from the grandeur of the Cathedral to the simplicity of the hall can bring us closer to the reality of the Christmas story – that Jesus was born, God became man, in quite primitive and humble circumstances in the stable at Bethlehem, and as believers we must always hold on to that sense of the Saviour coming to us in poverty and weakness, sharing in the full reality of the human condition.

It is true also that our celebration of the Lord’s birth has a strong sense of glory and brightness. “Glory to God in the highest heaven”   sing the great throng of the heavenly host, and the Prophet Isaiah had proclaimed “The people that walked in darkness has seen a great light.” The Church takes up these themes of light and glory in its prayer – “O God, who has made this most sacred night radiant with the splendour of the true light, grant, we pray, that we, who have known the mysteries of his light on earth, may also delight in his gladness in heaven.”

Jesus Christ is  indeed the true light and in our prayer we delight in expressing our firm and certain belief in this truth. Sometimes we can be tempted to seek, or even follow, other apparent lights, but our Christmas celebration strongly reminds us that Jesus Christ is the one light, through whom we are redeemed and promised a share in his glory in heaven. As human beings we need this hope, because life here can be difficult and, without the knowledge of the Lord’s presence within and among us, bleak and empty. Let us bask then in the beauty and goodness of the Lord’s light and resolve to remain there all our days. We want to be like the shepherds watching in the fields, around whom the glory of the Lord shone, as they heard the angel proclaim “Do not be afraid. Listen, I bring you news of great joy, a joy to be shared by the whole people. Today in the town of David a saviour has been born to you ; he is Christ the Lord .” Across the world tonight people like us are proclaiming Christ as Lord and we share in the joy of the Church through the ages, and “today”, as we do so.

Recently  our prime minister, David Cameron, described Britain as still being a Christian country, but in doing so he described himself as somebody who had quite a peripheral involvement in Church membership and Christian worship. Like many others he seems to think that we can remain Christian without having to do much about it, that the Christian faith can survive without any effort or commitment being required of those claiming to be followers of Jesus. Many Catholics have a similar outlook – “we’re Catholics, but we don’t go to Mass”; “we say our own prayers but we don’t see why we need to go to Church or receive the sacraments”; “it’s all old hat – we’re free spirits now and we do what we want, when we want”. I can see no future in these sort of attitudes and practices. Christianity has survived and flourished down the ages through God’s grace and the Church, Christ’s Body here on earth, and membership of the Church, and living the life of faith within the Church community, is essential  for Christianity to continue, and, better, to grow strong again in our land. St. Paul gave us a strong description of the Christian life tonight which points us in the right direction:

“We must be self-restrained and live good and religious lives here in this present world, while we are waiting in the hope for the blessing that will come with the Appearing of our great God and saviour Jesus Christ. He sacrificed himself for us in order to set us free from all wickedness and to purify a people so that it could be his very own and would have no ambition except to do good”.

There is certainly a need for the personal element in our religious practice, with each person living in Christ as best we can, but in order to do this we need the support of others and the power of the believing community. The community of faith first of all informs us of the Christian faith and then  directs us in the living out of that faith in the choices we make and the actions we carry out throughout our lives, so that we truly reflect the goodness and purity of Christ. We need all the help we can get, and it is the Church that gives us that through its proclamation and preaching of the Gospel, through its teaching authority given to the Apostles by the Lord and passed on by them to their successors through the ages, and very importantly through the worship and sacramental life of the Church, through which we know the Lord’s redeeming presence with us and are united with him in honouring and praising God. My contention then is that, rather than running away from the Church, we need the Church more than ever, and many of us need to reconnect with the Church in a stronger and better way, for our own good and for the well-being of our country. It is fair to ask also of those who have maintained a regular practice of their faith that they don’t become complacent, but rather renew their commitment to the Lord and their faithfulness to Catholic life and practice.

Does the practice, or the non-practice, of the Christian  faith make any difference then? Well, when you see how crude and disordered modern life can be at times, we may sense that the lack of the Gospel being known and loved, through the different Christian traditions, is being felt more and more, and the moral and spiritual quality of life is being cheapened because people have not been taught, or have forgotten very quickly, what is the right and decent thing to do. It was sad to hear a TV presenter making fun of Liam Aitchison’s murder, and more worrying to hear his supposed apology. Seeing the England football captain being charged with using racial expletives points to the excessive resort to abusive and offensive language on many occasions in modern life. These are just two matters which have struck me recently as being indicative of how insensitive people can be today about basic decency and social niceties. There may be other better or more local examples that you may think of, and the sins of the Church’s ordained ministers and religious cannot be forgotten or minimised either.

The Gospel of Christ and the life of grace offered to us by the Lord are the leaven which the Church offers and Society needs to hold onto its moral compass and its own sense of decency and compassion – without this basic goodness, life becomes more feral and hard and those who suffer most are those offended against, and those who are most vulnerable and exposed to the badness of their stronger neighbour. We need to constantly listen to the Lord, and to be guided by his teaching and his Holy Spirit living within us in order to have protection from sin and danger, and just as importantly to receive the inspiration and courage to live our Christian faith to the full in our daily living, thus bringing the living love of Christ to our neighbour. In this regard it was really good to hear of the delivery of the Christmas boxes by the Parish St. Vincent de Paul Society to the needy in Oban, and how welcome this kind gesture was for those who received it. We all can be more aware of the needy around us and in responding to them bring the goodness of Christ in small, but real, ways.

So Christmas is then a time to be enlivened in our faith and in our desire to celebrate that faith through our participation in the life and worship of the Church, with a renewed and genuine commitment to being the Lord’s witnesses in our own society, especially through our concern for our needy neighbour. Just as the Lord Jesus was born among us in poor and humble circumstances, depending on the love of Mary and Joseph, and other good people, for his survival in the world, so may he inspire us to live our faith in him in a similar spirit – open to the love of God offered to us in many different ways, and ready to share that love to the best of our ability with all who share our lives. May the Lord bless us in this noble task, and may his great light continue to shine upon us, the Church and the world.