Christmas Reflection

Season's greetings to you all! We welcome you to take a moment to read this shared reflection from Fr. Dan Riley and Christine Cusick. Christine is a St. Bonaventure grad that has recently become active with the Franciscan Sojourners group. Feel free to share your thoughts after reading through their reflection.

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“Yet in thy dark streets Shineth,
Thy everlasting Light”

As we reflect on the readings from the Midnight Mass for the Nativity of the Lord, we turn to this familiar line of “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” This nineteenth century hymn recalls for us the layers of meaning we find in the image of star against sky that we hear in the first reading from Isaiah: “The people who walked in darkness / have seen a great light.” This is indeed a season of Light. Even in the season of Advent, the wreath unfolded its light with the turn of each week, and in the circle of the candles, the deep color of the evergreen remained constant in hue and in shape, no beginning, no end: an eternal rhythm.

So many of us have heard this rhythm in the whisper of the pines that embrace the trails of Mt. Irenaeus, and so we know that God gives us the power of His hope on all nights, and on all paths. The richness of this Christmas green is granted meaning in its own contrast against the season’s rich reds: the bow to the wreath, the berry to the bough. These powerful reds remind us of the blood that Christ shed so that His full message would be revealed to us, in His death we would come to more fully realize His light.

“The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight.”

“Hopes and fears…” these simple words, in all their meanings that experiences grant us, are held in such contrast to one another, are of such different shades in our ordinary lives, and yet, as this traditional hymn reminds us, they “are met in thee, our Savior, tonight.” Such a tender image of meeting, of convergence, and in Christ’s glory, this beautiful paradox resonates to unite and embody all that we are, all that we yearn to become, through His power and His grace.

“But in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive him still,
The dear Christ enters in.”

When we search for rest in our own lives this Christmas season, we are undoubtedly challenged by the unrest of our world; we are a people in need of Light, in need of peace, in need of meaning. And yet each of these readings reminds us that what Christ brings to us, in all the grandeur of humility, is justice.

We hear in the Psalm: “He shall rule the world with justice / and the peoples with constancy.” We see from the details of that deep dark Christmas night that this is not the justice of human law and nation. It is the justice of Christ, of Love, which came in the stillness of night, warmed by “swaddling clothes,” humbled through God’s power to share our flesh, our fears, our hope, so that through Him we might find peace.

“O holy Child of Bethlehem
Descend to us, we pray
Cast out our sin and enter in
Be born to us today.”

As we reflect on our shared place of the Mountain, we might recall how the rays of God’s Light pour abundantly through the canopy of the pines. Christ’s Light is indeed with us, not just in the depths of this midnight hour of Christmas, but also in each turn of the day.



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(Mt. Irenaeus Web Site)