What time is it?

Christmas Mass during the Night

Priests and parish staff are oft to repeat this rant about Christmas, especially in the run up to the big day. The office phone will be ringing off the hook inundated with calls enquiring about Mass timing. The icing which tops the cake has to be this seemingly innocuous question: “What time is Christmas Midnight Mass?” Let that sink in.... it’s like asking, “what time is your noon lunch break?” Sometimes, the obvious isn’t that obvious even when it is stated explicitly.

Well, there may be a reason why someone would ask for the timing of the Midnight Mass. It has been a long time since Midnight Masses were celebrated at midnight in most parishes, especially here in Malaysia, where multiple Masses are celebrated throughout the night to accommodate the massive crowds and the vernacular communities. The Holy Father’s decision to move the Christmas “midnight” Mass to 7.30 pm this year due to a curfew imposed by the civil authorities for public health reasons has enraged many traditional-minded Catholics and befuddled many others as the Mass during the night appears to move further and further away from its traditional midnight slot. To be fair to Pope Francis, it was St John Paul II who had moved the “midnight” Mass to 10 pm during his pontificate on the pretext that he needed to wake up early in the morning to celebrate the dawn Mass.

I can understand why Catholics would be upset with this change of timing as the traditional timing has deep significance. In the first place it corresponds with the traditional belief that Christ was born at midnight. Secondly, from the material darkness around us, we are reminded of the spiritual darkness in the world which only Christ the Light can dispel.

But what is more important than the timing of the Christmas Mass is the significance of this day in human history. To understand this, we need to know that there are two Greek words and concepts associated with “time.” There is “chronos” which refers to time measured by the clock, by seconds, minutes, hours, days. Here in this story of the birth of Christ, we are given such an indication with St Luke recording that the event took place during the reign of Caesar Augustus and his empire-wide census. As important as this historical date or event may be (some historians have questioned its historicity), it is a mere cursory note in Luke’s narrative.

The Greeks, however, have a second type of reckoning of time - “kairos” - the opportune moment, the right moment, the perfect time for acting and making decisions. And it is here that we see how the Divine Kairos moment converges with the chronological hour. The story shifts away from the chronological hour to the Kairos moment of God’s decisive intervention in human history - the Eternal Word takes on flesh, God becomes man, the Timeless One enters into our time and space.

This is what the angels announced to the shepherds and what we proclaimed in the response to our psalm, “Today a Saviour has been born to us, He is Christ the Lord.” What we celebrate at Christmas is not so much the birth of a baby, as important as that is, but what’s so significant about the birth of this particular baby is that, in this birth, we have the incarnation of God Himself, we have the birth of our Saviour.

The fullness of time had come. For thousands upon thousands of years, God’s people waited for the coming of the Son of David, the Messiah-King of Israel, the promised Prince of Peace, Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God. And now, their prophets’ wildest dreams finally materialised as angel choirs announced, The King is here! Born this very day. It doesn’t matter whether it was midnight or 10 pm or 7.30 pm in the evening. The point is that with Christ’s coming, that’s always the right time, the perfect time, the ultimate Kairos moment.

Many of us would find ourselves questioning God’s timing which sometimes seems at odds with our own timing, our plans. Many would have made plans this year to travel, to get married, to further their studies, to move jobs, to grow their business, to buy a house or a car. But here comes this global pandemic which seems to have ruined all our plans and thrown every timeline and dateline of ours into utter chaos. What lousy timing? Could God have delayed this until things were a little bit more secure, or couldn’t He just allow this to happen earlier without throwing our plans into disarray?

But the truth is this: God's timing is always good timing. It’s perfect timing. God is never too early, never too late, but always on time. Our timing isn't God's timing. For us, God's timing often feels like a long, desperate delay or it comes too soon when we are least prepared. God's perfect timing does two things: It grows our faith as we are forced to wait and trust in God and it makes certain that He, and He alone, gets the glory and praise for pulling us through.

So, it is “Today”, not “yesterday” nor “tomorrow,” but “today!” “Today a Saviour has been born to us, He is Christ the Lord.” It may not be the ideal slot at midnight; it may seem a little too early to celebrate the Christmas midnight Mass, but what we celebrate today at this Mass is always perfect timing: “Today a Saviour has been born to us, He is Christ the Lord.”

Many people may be complaining that this year, because of this destructive pandemic, has been the worst year of their lives - an “annus horribilis”, an awful year, as opposed to an “annus mirabilis”, a wonderful year. This year has turned people’s worlds upside-down in so many ways. Many would say that this pandemic and government restrictions have also rendered our Christmas, the worst Christmas of our lives. With smaller budgets for shopping, restrictions on festive celebrations, uncertain future and disrupted plans for next year, and public Christmas Masses suspended, it does seem that this Christmas does deserve that ignoble accolade.

But before you throw your own pity-party, it’s good to remember the experience of the Holy Family that first Christmas. A couple, with a heavily pregnant young mother finding themselves out in the cold on a winter night, separated from kin and away from their home, only finding refuge in an animal stable, giving birth to a child in an extremely hostile world of insecure tyrannical despots, a child who will be placed in a manger, a feeding trough for animals. All the elements needed for a disaster movie, making it one of the worst experiences for any family. But this is not the case.

Rather than being a start to an annus horribilis due to such harsh and horrid conditions, the birth of this child will inaugurate an aetas mirabilis, an age of such great marvel, simply because “Today a Saviour has been born to us, He is Christ the Lord.” That alone will cast a light that would immediately dispel the surrounding darkness in this world. That alone, would transform misfortune into a blessing, a bleak future into a hopeful one, a sense of loss into one of abundance. Whatever situation you find yourselves in tonight, no matter how you may question God’s timing, know this - the birth of this Child changes everything. So, if someone tells you that Christmas has been cancelled this year due to the pandemic, you should respond, “No, this pandemic has been cancelled by Christmas!”

Nothing cancels Christmas, absolutely nothing!

Because “Today a Saviour has been born to us, He is Christ the Lord.”