Archbishop of Sydney

Christmas 2007

St Mary’s Cathedral

By + Cardinal George Pell
Archbishop of Sydney
25/12/2007

Christmas is a celebration of hope; a mighty feast where we call up the Christian virtue of hope. Why are we hopeful? Every birth inspires hope in our hearts, especially for the mothers, who, as the baptismal rite puts it, “see the hope of eternal life shine on their children”. But what if Christ’s birth? Let us show our hand at the start and put our two best cards on the table: a) This Christ child is the Son of God and b) He is our Saviour. As the refrain to the psalm insists “Today is born our Saviour, Christ the Lord”.

The Christian virtue of hope is not the same as human optimism because sometimes the outlook can be bleak indeed. Humanly speaking an individual’s or community’s situation can be hopeless, but even then persons of faith can retain their Christian hope, because such hope reaches beyond today into eternity where the scales of merciful justice will balance out.

Human power is limited, despite the miracles of modern technology and even the state is powerless to forgive sins.  Through the police and the courts malefactors can be punished or the accused freed from blame, but none of us is empowered to forgive a wrong committed on another.  Yet Matthew’s gospel is quite explicit as the angel explains to Joseph in a dream that Mary’s son is the one to “save his people from their sins”. Because he is our brother, truly a son of Mary as well as the only Son of God Jesus can redeem us from our crimes and sins.  And this power to forgive sins, provided we repent and ask for forgiveness, is limited not only to the Jews, God’s chosen people in the old dispensation and not only to the many varieties of Christians. As Paul explained to Titus salvation and forgiveness are now available to the whole human race.

No wonder the Old Testament prophet and poet Isaiah, straining to discern some fixed points in the darkness of the future, more than 550 years before Christ’s birth, claimed that a light had shone on those who lived deep in the shadows.

Pope Benedict has written his second official letter or encyclical on the virtue of hope, explaining its close linkage with the virtue of faith. As the letter to the Hebrews has it “faith is the substance of things hoped for; the proof of things not seen”. In a mysterious way faith draws the future into the present and it is our faith in this Christ child, who grew up to redeem us nearly 2000 years ago, which gives us hope today.

We should also be quite clear that if Christ was simply another good man like the Pope, or Archbishop of Canterbury or the Patriarch of Constantinople he could not forgive our sins and would be no adequate subject for our faith or hope. This is essential.

This year in the run-up to Christmas some mild controversy erupted over particular features of the Christmas story. It is no secret that the date of December 25th, chosen by the Western Churches in the fourth century as the day to celebrate Christ’s birth, falls at a time when the ancient pagans in Europe celebrated mid-winter. The actual day, the 25th, had been dedicated to a feast of the Sun, a devotion the first Christian emperor Constantine had followed before he supported Christianity.

We should not be surprised by all this as the early Christians were not frightened to take over the best of earlier cultures and refine and develop it. Many of the prayers we use at Sunday masses, their brevity, balance and conciseness, are much influenced by the pagan Roman liturgies. The ancient pillars in the Church of Santa Maria in Trastevere in Rome, which dates back over 1600 years, are probably taken from pagan temples. So too the date of Christmas was borrowed and indeed sometimes celebrated on other days e.g. January 6th in Eastern Churches.

In every age Christians have taken the best they can find or produce in art, music, liturgy and architecture and used it to praise God.

But the birth of Jesus was not like midnight Mass in a Cathedral. Our tiny crib, displaced because of the renovations, gives us a clearer insight into the event.

Even the colourful Leghorn bantams, so identified by our knowledgeable sacristan, are probably too up market. Chooks in stables are grubby and flea ridden.

The theology of Christmas is deep and true, but the reality was down to earth, more distressing and uncomfortable than much of Australian life. We should not be distracted from the truth by the clean plaster statues, by the beautiful cribs.

Pope Benedict is a most effective teacher and the numbers coming to Rome to hear him are larger than those who came to hear the great Pope John Paul II.

This year in St. Peter’s Square we do not have a traditional crib but the home of St. Joseph, Jesus’ foster father, who is rarely in the Christmas spotlight.

When Joseph discovered Mary was pregnant, he was contemplating a quiet divorce from her rather than the violent punishments then administered to adulterous women. Reassured in the dream we mentioned earlier, he stayed to become a crucial element in Jesus’ human development as well as the spouse and protector of Mary. Pope Benedict is trying to provoke us into looking at this ancient story with new eyes and deeper understanding.

I feel no embarrassment, feel under no logical imperative to reject the stories surrounding Jesus birth, such as the visits of the shepherds and wise men (whatever their number and even if they were astrologers), the flight into Egypt, the slaughter of the innocents. But these incidents are not centrally important like the fact that the Christ child is God’s only Son.

It is faith in this central truth which will bring more than 150,000 young overseas pilgrims to Sydney for World Youth Day next July and many more tens of thousands from around Australia.

I am sure you will welcome them. We also need many volunteers, home billets for the pilgrims and young Sydney people to register. It is an explicitly Catholic celebration, but all young searchers for the truth will be welcome.

As always our thoughts and prayers go out in a special way to all those who are battling, suffering in some way at this Christmas.

But I pray for all that this Christmas will bring you hope and strengthen your faith and love.

A happy Christmas to everyone.

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