It definitely deserves reading in full!
One of the many unfortunate aspects of our collaboration in the evolution (i.e., secularization) of Christmas has been the diminished attendance at Christmas Day Mass in favor of anticipations of Christmas on the evening (or even worse in the afternoon) before. And, of course, one consequence of that has been the de facto downgrading of the principal Mass of Christmas (the third Mass or Missa in die) with its glorious gospel reading from John 1, the famous "prologue," which, until 1965, was also fittingly read at the end of almost every Mass. Even worse, as Rita notes in her column, even when people do attend Mass during the day, they might not hear the proper daytime gospel and may get instead the Lucan gospel from the Midnight Mass.
"Many priests routinely
avail themselves of the permission to use other readings in place of the
readings proper to the Mass of Christmas day,” she writes. “People want to hear
about shepherds and angels,” a pastor she once worked for told her, “and that’s
what we give them.” She is "convinced this represents a loss" - as I
too am convinced. (For what it may be worth, I always faithfully follow the
Missal’s order and use the appointed readings on Christmas Day. But I can also
recall one year, way back when I was a deacon, when the priest insisted on
using the Midnight readings at all the Masses on both Christmas Eve and Day,
along with Eucharistic Prayer II. I have no doubt he believed he was giving
people what they wanted! And maybe indeed he was!)
“Here is where I think the
church’s ministry too often fails," Rita responds, "it does not show
people how to enter into mystery. Much sensitivity is needed to bridge the
divide between the secular world and its habits of mind, and the sacred, to
which gospel and liturgy invite the faithful.”
Of course, she is right. But, if
our ministry “often fails,” if it fails “to bridge the divide between the
secular world and its habits of mind, and the sacred, to which gospel and liturgy
invite the faithful,” isn’t that sort of built into our individualistic,
consumerist, post-modern, American style of life – and a corresponding style of
liturgical worship – that is itself riddled with “the secular world and its habits of mind“?
Often, when people get worried
about what the world has done to Christmas – and what our contemporary
liturgical adaptations have collaborated in doing to Christmas –
often the proposed solution is Advent. But I am convinced, as I have said
before, that the solution cannot be some sort of competition between Advent and
Christmas (a competition Christmas will surely win and Advent can only lose!). And, anyway, in themselves, the Christmas things that occupy us for most of
Advent – parties, decorations, gift-giving – are not per se in themselves bad things. They too can be valid vehicles for incarnating the Christmas story in the sights and sounds of our culture.
The problem is not some
supposed competition between Advent and Christmas but the lack of seriousness
of both Advent and Christmas in today's "Holiday" season. As I wrote
here last week, the issue is not whether one's Tree is already up at home but
whether one's heart is at the mall. The Advent Wreath is not an alternative to
the Christmas Tree. Like the Christmas Tree, the Advent Wreath is itself just another cute folkloric custom, which in its contemporary
incarnation can become yet another frivolous substitute for Advent's
challenging message about the impending Day of Judgment – just as the illuminated Tree can
become yet another frivolous substitute for John’s gospel’s challenging message
of the light that shines in the darkness.
(Rita Ferrone's Commonweal column on the Christmas gospel can be found at https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/his-own-received-him not?utm_source=Main+Reader+List&utm_campaign=b1360ad627-July+18_The_Week_at_Commonweal&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_407bf353a2-b1360ad627-92355161).
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