A Christmas Message from Archbishop Vigneron

Detroit Archbishop Allen Vigneron offers the following Christmas message to the faithful of Metro Detroit. The archbishop will celebrate Christmas Eve Midnight Mass at the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament, 9844 Woodward Avenue in Detroit. A prelude by the Cathedral Chorale and Orchestra will begin at 11:30 p.m., Friday, December 24.

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

From that very first Christmas the news has been good: as the angel announced, "I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Messiah and Lord" (Lk. 2:10-11). In sitting down to compose this Christmas greetings to you and your families, I am vividly aware that we, in this region at this time in our history, are particularly glad to have "good news." It is my heartfelt hope that the Church's proclamation again this Christmas of the good news that God is with us in Christ Jesus will enkindle new hope in your hearts.

To do my own "bit" toward fanning into flame the spark that is struck from the Christmas Gospel, I want to share my reflection about one particular quality of the good news of the Incarnation (literally, the "enfleshment" of God the Son). This year I want us to think together about how St. Paul framed his announcement of this good news. The Apostle put it this way in his Letter to the Galatians: "[W]hen the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman..." (4:4). What is the meaning of St. Paul saying that it was "in the fullness of time" that God's Son was born a man? To get some insight into the answer to that question will, I think, take us a long way toward appreciating how "good" the good news of Christmas is.

At a first glance, the point in Israel's history when God chose to fulfill his promise to his people that he would send them a Messiah, hardly seemed to be the "fullness of time." Rather, it looked to the chosen people to be the "emptiest" of times.

One of my favorite Scripture commentators, Cardinal Albert Van Hoye, observes that, while God prepared for the birth of the Savior by the deliberate plan he worked out through all the generations between Adam and Christ, to human eyes the time of the Lord's coming seemed to be an age without hope. Israel found itself subjected to the rule of a pagan emperor, no longer governed by a king of the House of David under the law of the covenant. The people who were once freed from Egypt felt themselves to be virtual slaves in their own land. The Messiah's birth happened in a small town. Joseph, though of David's line, was an unknown, with a humble trade. But, as the Cardinal reminds us, "God is the master of the impossible, and he carried out his design when everything conspired to lead one to expect nothing."

The point: God, by the sovereign power of his love, filled the "emptiest" of times to the full. He made it "the fullness of time." He transformed what seemed, until the very moment before the Angel appeared, to be a day of unremitting gloom into the dawn of a new age, the final age, the age of the triumph of life over death, of good over evil, of love over sin and selfishness.

And, God turned everything upside down by taking what looked totally impotent and filling it with power. He took the sterility of a virgin and made it fruitful beyond measure: Mary, who "did not know man," gave birth to the founder of new human race. He who is God from God, begotten of the Father from before time, took on our flesh and filled his human nature with divine life. The omnipotent Son of God took to himself the weakness of a new-born infant and made that impotence powerful beyond measure, invincibly powerful to save us. That is how God make the empty time into the fullness of time. This is the good news; indeed, the very best news.

I would like to make two sorts of applications to identify how this good news is not an abstract proposition but is good for us in the practical fabric of our day to day lives.

Let me start by mentioning the life of our community here in southeast Michigan. While the news about the troubles in our region has abated to some degree, not many days go by without some story that describes the seemingly insurmountable challenges we face: unemployment, urban blight, decline in education, violence, the collapse of family life, and the dissolution of the sound moral consensus that has guided us for generations – all giving rise to a feeling that we are going through a epic period of social dislocation. All of that serves as an outline of what could be fairly named as the "emptiness" of our time. And yet, God makes this the fullness of time for any of us who accept his offer of his Son as our salvation. He is with us in this hour. To the degree we turn to him in our weakness, he fills us with his strength.

The strength with which God fills up the emptiness of our time comes in at least two forms. First, the Lord Jesus gives us strength to bear the challenges of our age with courage and trust. He is with us, and he will not go away. With him we can persevere, and in persevering we have already conquered. Second, Christ does not only give us the power to endure, he offers us the help we need to meet our challenges and rebuild our community. His grace is an immeasurable power for the renewal of our age. With him as our King, as we strive to build our lives according to his plan, we will advance toward the rebirth of our community. The good news of Christmas is that by God's grace, now can be "the fullness of time" for our society.

Now, let me go on to consider how Christmas is good news at a more personal level. All of us experience the emptying out from our lives of things we hold most dear. Our hopes and ambitions so frequently come to nothing. We lose those we love, sometimes by separation and eventually by death. We lose our health, our ability to accomplish the things that give us satisfaction. Some of us lose our freedom. And finally, each of us will have the breath of life itself taken from us. And yet, in our moments of personal emptiness, God is ready to fill us with himself. If we turn to him in trust, if we abandon ourselves to him and his providential love for us, Christ will fill us beyond measure. Whatever our experience of loss, if we entrust it to him, he will transform into a deeper share in his life. Any hour, even the saddest and darkest hour in our lives, is the fullness of time in Christ Jesus. If God can turn the very murder of the Author of life into the means for the conquering of death and the triumph of life, then he will turn our sorrow into joy if we let him.

The Holy Eucharist is God's clearest pledge that what I have written is an accurate expression of the mind and heart of Christ. The Eucharist is our celebration of the mystery of faith: that by dying, Christ destroyed death. The Eucharist in its seeming insignificance is the sacrament of God's all-powerful powerlessness, the Love that willed to lay aside omnipotence at his birth in order to conquer only by the depth of his love on the cross – to conquer not by compulsion, not by force of might, but only "by drawing all things to himself" when he was "lifted up" (Jn. 12:32).

Yes, Christmas is the fullness of time: the first Christmas day and Christmas day 2010 – no matter what leads you to feel empty. And the "fullest of the fullness" of Christmas day is our sharing in the Holy Eucharist. There, at the altar, God is most with us. Our Christmas Mass is his promise that he will never stop sharing in our weakness and that he will never stop filling our weak selves with himself. And filled with Christ, we are full beyond measure.

With all my heart I pray that you and those you love have a blessed celebration of Christ's birth. My particular intention is that when we are at Mass this Christmas all of us will be of one heart and mind with each of us – expectantly asking for and confidently accepting Christ in his fullness, and so never be empty again. I promise to bring with me to the altar that prayer for you, the people I love and serve; please make it your prayer for me, your priest and pastor. Merry Christmas.

Your brother in the Lord,

Archbishop Allen Vigneron