CHRISTMAS EVE 2005, Midnight Mass, St. Edward's 2005

Why is Christmas so special?

It is a day when we think of peace and good will to all people, a day which famously lead to the soldiers in the First World war play football in no man's land rather than killing each other, it is a day when people go out of their way to be nice to each other, to go that extra mile, as Jesus instructed us. It is also a time for family arguments to resurface, it is a time of stressful preparations, unrealistic expectations, a time to fall seriously into debt and wake up in the New Year with a financial hangover.

Why is Christmas so special?

I think for most, if not all of us, Christmas is a time that reminds us of our childhood. The magic of childhood christmasess has never entirely gone away. We may receive presents we asked for, we may be people it is difficult to buy a present for, we may follow the same routines on Christmas day, but Christmas is still special, in fact it is VERY special.

I'm not sure what was the first conscious religious experience I had but I think it was when I was seven years old. I played the roll of Joseph in my primary school nativity play in the evening. I vividly remember walking back home with my family afterwards. Being the dreamy young boy that I was, I spent most of the time staring up at the night sky, looking at the stars. They fascinated me. I wondered if I could ever reach them, or know what they were like... could I ever go and see a star in the sky? I also remember my older brother telling me that the stars were dead, all I could see was light traveling through space from a star which had long since burnt out. If I went to visit the star there would be nothing for me to see. Physics had proved that.

I don't think my brother was entirely right, it is certainly true that some of the stars you see are images from the past, stars which we see now but no longer exist, but this isn't true of all them. What is more important, and far more thought-provoking is the fact that you can still see them.

As a child this fascinated me. Were the stars in the sky a way in which I could see the past? Could I still see something that no longer existed? Whether they were dead or living planets my imagination was hooked.

So how was this a religious experience? I had just played the roll of Joseph in the primary school nativity play and had been following a star as my teachers had told me to. When I walked home however I gave no thought to the play I had been in. Joseph, Mary, Jesus were all rather boring.......

And yet I felt something magical, even as a small boy I felt there was something beyond my understanding, something mysterious. It was not that I felt very small when I looked up at the stars during my walk home, it was that I felt in the presence of someone. I didn't feel alone. I found an invisible friend.

The years past, and it was not until I was a teenager that I started going to Church. Looking up at the stars was comforting (perhaps in the same way that people read horoscopes in the newspapers) but it was not life changing. What made it real was time, I spent time thinking about my beliefs, thinking about my life and where it was going.....

Jesus said in the Gospels 'unless you become like a child you will never enter the kingdom of heaven', Psychologists, such as Erik Erikson have linked old age with early infancy as a healthy development. When we are infants we work at how who we should trust and who we should distrust, when we are at the end of our lives we try to exercise our wisdom, we tell people who will help them, yet n our own we grow increasingly desperate because death is at hand.

When I became a teenager I realized that not everything i believed in as a child was wrong. the world was still a mysterious place. At Christmas I would stop and think, is this the wisest way to live my life?

Why is Christmas so special?

Earlier this evening I chatted with a member of the University Security Services. He had formerly been a policeman for the Royal Air Force, most of his time had been spent in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. He was a Christian, though he confessed to not coming to Church very much. However, he admitted to me that every day, when he got into his car to drive to work, he said the Lord's Prayer out loud. He believed in prayer, and felt a need to ask God for help. He told me this was an embarrassing thing to admit to, he wouldn't tell his friends or his work colleagues this....only his wife knew. I felt very privileged that he admitted to me. The great thing about being a priest is that people will tell you things about their faith that they often feel very awkward in telling anyone else.

When I asked him what he thought was important about Christmas he said it was the 'atmosphere'. Christmas, he claimed, 'gave a feeling of hope, a hope that came from 'somewhere else - somewhere beyond. I guess that's how I understand God.'

I understood that. When I grew up I pondered the conversation between Mary and the Archangel Gabriel. With God, nothing is impossible.

Why is Christmas so special?

Because it gives us a feeling of hope, even when the world around us seems to be in such a mess.