Wishing you all a Blessed Christmas!
The Christmas Vigil Mass, though celebrating the Savior’s birth, is still focused on it by way of anticipation. We are on the very cusp or edge of Christmas, but we’re not quite there yet.
At the Mass of Midnight, we can bask, as it were, in the splendor of the true light of Christ. The Church, bathed in the radiance of the Christ child, steps back and, like the angels and shepherds of the gospel for that Mass, gazes in wonder and admiration. The ancient promise has been fulfilled, and we who celebrate this liturgy, as the opening prayer says, are granted the privilege of knowing “the mysteries of his light on earth.”
The Christmas Masses of the day reveals the full purpose of God’s promise and fulfillment: Now that, in the words of the gospel for the Mass of the Day, “the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us,” human nature has been restored. And that restored nature is capable of being “wholly pleasing” to God, and the light of Christ can shine through our deeds.