Archbishop of Sydney

Christmas 2005, Midnight Mass

St. Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney
Is 9:1-7; Titus 2:11-14; Lk 2:1-14

By + Cardinal George Pell
Archbishop of Sydney
25/12/2005

Jesus, the Christ Child we adore, seems to have done better this year in our part of the world than last year.  Certainly, there have been more traditional Christmas decorations in the shops and on the streets and our crib, which the City Council permitted us to exhibit in the square in front of the Cathedral, has had many visitors, some of whom stayed to pray.

 We also had a Church full of people on Thursday night for our Christmas carol service, three or four times as many as last year.  This was a pleasant surprise for us, probably helped by the visitors to our crib.  I wonder too whether there was a reaction after the Cronulla disturbances and the Maroubra reprisal raid, which called people back to the Christmas message of salvation through a helpless child, a rejection of cowardly violence.  As a society we cannot afford to lose our bearings, to have hate and racial antagonism rather than love providing the setting for our moral compass.

 There were other good signs; an article on whether consumerism the urge to possess, the “shop till you drop” syndrome, would prove fatal to Christian values (it won’t) and yet, another wondering whether Santa Claus, i.e. Father Christmas brought more dollars into the shops than Our Lord.  I think the financial experts thought that Father Christmas was ahead on that score!

 I always have resisted those who suggest that Father Christmas is hostile to our Christian understanding of the feast.  He is a bit of a “Johnny come lately”, created by Coca Cola in an advertising campaign about 80 years ago, but his prototype was St. Nicholas from Turkey in the fourth century AD., a bishop renowned for the practical help he gave to battlers and specially for the dowries he provided for three young sisters which enabled them to be married and saved them from a life of prostitution.

I hope that this type of charity is not needed among us today, but the general Christian message is clear; that at Christmas we should be thinking of others, especially those who could do with a helping hand, and not thinking of ourselves.  Christmas is God thinking of us.

Recently I had dinner with a group which included a real live duchess from Europe.  She grew up in a good Catholic family and she spoke lovingly of her father, who had a strong faith and was also a wise and loving husband and father.  As they were rich, the children always had many Christmas presents, but before opening them each had to choose three to give to the poor.  I am sure this caused some heartburn to the children, but it was a lesson that woman never forgot.  It captures something of the real spirit of Christmas.

It is good to try to identify what we, what the Catholic Church celebrates at Christmas.  As a first step the feast clearly teaches us that human existence has a meaning beyond the material facts of life.  Money is a means to either good or bad ends; it is not a value in itself.  Money and possession cannot return your love and in the long run money cannot do much against personal suffering and cannot beat death, although it can delay it.

Man is a religious animal and if we do not choose a religion like Christianity, which only comes at some cost, we shall probably be embracing cheap substitutes, easy superstitions.  The popularity of Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code”, a silly sub-Christian yarn, is a symptom of irreligious unease and searching.

The Christian message is clear and provocative.  Human life has truth and meaning, so much so that our loving God sent his Son to share our human condition; the highs and the lows and the humdrum.

You do not need to be a duchess or a professor to understand this.  You do not even need to be a believer to be moved by the idea of God being among us as a baby in a stable, as a young man crucified on a cross.

For those of us who believe such claims, the Christian message can be ennobling and regularly brings strength and consolation.

The feast of Christmas will outlive all of its commercial rivals and in fact business needs Christmas.  No market will be sustained in the long term by selfish people buying presents for themselves!

Christmas is a time for others and especially Christmas is a time for God – a time to thank Almighty God – the transcendent Lord of human history, the creator of the universe, the guiding hand, the Intelligent Designer behind all the developments we can explain by evolution and those we cannot yet explain – to thank God Almighty for sending his Son among us, to teach us and redeem us.

Those who accept and understand the Christ Child have genuine insight into God himself, into God’s love and wisdom.  This is the message of Christmas.

Every peace and blessing to you and yours at this Christmas time.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.