Incarnate Humility

Christmas Mass During the Night 2022

One of the most impactful experiences I had as a newly ordained priest was when I had the privilege of ministering to a group of Vietnamese textile workers in Nilai. They emerged at one Christmas gathering organised by the parish for migrants and asked me if I could celebrate Mass for their community at their “hotel” (of course, they meant “hostel”). When I asked them if they had space in their “hotel” large enough to host a Mass, they excitedly told me that they had a hall. I asked them how many persons the hall can accommodate and they said 50. When I asked them how many Catholics were living there, they told me “300!”

I was having trouble doing the maths, so, I asked them how a hall meant for 50 persons could accommodate 300. Their answer simply floored me: “we will take turns.” In a world where so many feel entitled and are constantly complaining about how their demands are not being met, a world where everyone is jostling for the best seats and the best slots in the Christmas Mass schedule, here was a community who revealed to me the most needed virtue of humility which today’s feast epitomises - how one can and should give up one’s place for another – a reflexion of how our Lord emptied Himself of His divinity to make room for us in heaven, even though we collectively denied Him hospitality on earth!

The beauty of Christ’s humility on this feast day reveals as much as it conceals. He demonstrates through His own birth, the meaning of humility, which is to “give up everything that does not lead to God.” This is a necessary reminder especially when humility is no longer in vogue or respected. Instead, it is held in contempt. Humility is often regarded as a sign of weakness and even stupidity, a lack of prudence in an age that demands street wise tactics and an ego the size of a football field in order to survive or be admired. Thus, humility revealed as the pathway to God is concealed to our modern senses.

The capacity to change and influence the world requires a whole list of factors missing from the Christmas story: wealth, power, a degree from a prestigious university, stage charisma, success, achievement, a proven track record, connexions with the right people, a magical public relations team and lots of media promotion. Juxtaposed against the narrator’s introduction of a seemingly all powerful Roman emperor who can move the various nations on earth as if they were his pawns, and a less powerful politician but still formidable provincial governor, the story of a child born to poor humble parents would seem too trivial for the telling. But this child would be the main protagonist of our Christmas story and not the former two.

Today, the humble often go unnoticed and are deemed insignificant. They make no impact in our lives and hardly warrant a flicker of our attention. The role models of our society are not the humble, but the selfishly ambitious, the proud, the arrogant. The people that our society looks up to – royalty, businessman, politicians, sports heroes, celebrities, actors and actresses, singers, entertainers – they all tend to have one thing in common: a very high regard for themselves, insatiable ego and ambition, and a great talent for self-promotion.

But let us now consider the humility of the Incarnation itself, the second person of the Trinity, the eternal Son of God, taking on humanity with all of its limitations, with all of its pain and sorrow and suffering. It is impossible to fathom the transformation the Lord Jesus endured to leave the glorious perfection of heaven, for a manger. The Son of God gave up His honour and glory, He let go of His position, He relinquished all of the riches of heaven, in order to become poor like us, in order to save us from our sins. He gave up that glory in order to become a human baby, a helpless little infant.

Not even a royal baby, not the son of a king; not a wealthy baby, the son of money and privilege. But instead, a peasant child born to poverty and want, raised in very humble circumstances. Surrounded not by God’s holy angels and the glory of heaven, but instead surrounded by sinful, fallen human beings (with the exception of His immaculately conceived mother) and a stinking, dirty barn. But Christ’s humility didn’t end with His birth or His childhood. It continued throughout His life.

So, how do we come before Him on this Christmas night? What can we offer to Him who created the universe and gave us everything we possess? The answer is this: we come to Him in humility, we come to Him with nothing to offer but ourselves, when we have learnt how to “give up everything that does not lead to God, and all our worldly ambitions.” Thus, the only way in which we can truly come to encounter our Lord and Saviour on this Christmas day, is to adorn the garment of humility and condescend to where He has chosen to lay His head for the night. If we want to restore Christmas to our culture, it will require more than just good intentions; it would require radical humility. We will need to give up seats on the pews or places in line. We will need to show grace, even when grace is not given. We will need to humble ourselves and follow the example set by the baby in the manger, the shepherds in the field, and Mary and Joseph as they agreed to God’s plan.

Today, anyone wishing to enter the Church of the Lord’s Nativity in Bethlehem, constructed over the site where tradition holds Jesus was born, will find that the doorway five and a half metres high, through which emperors and caliphs used to enter the building, is now largely walled up. Only a low opening of one and a half metres has remained (less than 5 feet). The intention was probably to provide the church with better protection from invaders, but above all, to prevent people from entering God’s house on horseback. Anyone wishing to enter the place of Jesus’ birth has to get off his high horse and bend down, before entering.

Pope Emeritus Benedict in reflecting over the height and size of this doorway writes: “It seems to me that a deeper truth is revealed here, which should touch our hearts on this holy night: if we want to find the God who appeared as a child, then we must dismount from the high horse of our “enlightened” reason. We must set aside our false certainties, our intellectual pride, which prevents us from recognising God’s closeness. We must follow the interior path of Saint Francis – the path leading to that ultimate outward and inward simplicity which enables the heart to see. We must bend down, spiritually we must as it were go on foot, in order to pass through the portal of faith and encounter the God who is so different from our prejudices and opinions – the God who conceals Himself in the humility of a newborn baby. In this spirit let us celebrate the liturgy of the holy night, let us strip away our fixation on what is material, on what can be measured and grasped. Let us allow ourselves to be made simple by the God who reveals himself to the simple of heart. And let us also pray especially at this hour for all who have to celebrate Christmas in poverty, in suffering, as migrants, that a ray of God’s kindness may shine upon them, that they – and we – may be touched by the kindness that God chose to bring into the world through the birth of his Son in a stable. Amen.”