And the Word Became Flesh

Introduction

The three Masses of Christmas

Christmas is the only day in the liturgical calendar which has three different Masses assigned it. That dates back to the 7^th century when the Popes started to celebrate Christmas Mass in various churches around Rome. By the 19^th century it was a well-established custom in the Western Church. The gospel for the first Mass of Christmas has the “heavenly multitude of angels praising God and singing, `Glory to God in the highest, and peace to his people on earth’” (Lk 2:14). So the first Mass of Christmas was called the Mass of the Angels. The gospel for the second Mass has the shepherds saying to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this wonderful thing that has come to pass” (Lk2:15). The second Mass was called the Mass of the Shepherds. The gospel for the third Mass has St. John saying, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… And the Word became flesh” (Jn 1:1; 14). That Mass was called the Mass of the Divine Word. In the missalette the three are better known as Mass at Midnight, Mass at Dawn and Mass during the Day.

Not a word anymore but flesh and blood

The first Mass of the Angels may be used not only at midnight but also at dawn and during the day. Its gospel is very enfleshed. It is enfleshed with an angel of the Lord announcing tidings of great joy. It is enfleshed with lonely shepherds keeping watch over their sheep by night. It is enfleshed with an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. It is enfleshed with a whole choir of angels breaking the silence of night and outdoing Handel’s’s Messiah as they sing, “Glory to God, Glory to God, Glory to God in the highest.”

The heresy of verbalism

In the gospel for the third Mass of Christmas (Mass of the Divine Word) St. John cryptically writes, ”In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God….And the Word became flesh” (Jn 1: 1,14). The Word of God isn’t a word anymore! The Word of God now is flesh and blood!

For personal reasons that’s a loaded thought for me. It ignites an ignoble fire in me. Let me tell you why. One day after Mass (the banquet of love) someone accosts me and asks, “How come you didn’t recite the words of consecration over the bread and wine exactly as they are chiseled out for you in the big red altar missal? If you don’t conform to the prescribed words, I am going to leave the parish.” My dear lady, the Word of God isn’t a word anymore. It is now flesh and blood. It’s lying in a manger.

Again, let me tell you why that thought ignites an ignoble fire in me. A visiting guest, having stumbled unsuspectingly into Old St. Mary’s for a 10 A.M. liturgy and having endured that frightful experience, later wrote back asking, “How come at the penitential rite you did not pronounce the words of absolution? How come the words of the Gloria were not sung, though it was a Sunday Mass? How come you arbitrarily shortened the words of the gospel, omitting verses 40 through 42? How come you entirely omitted the words of the prayer Pray brethren? How come the words of the preface were entirely of your own creation, as were also the very words of consecration over the bread and wine?” My dear lady, the Word of God isn’t a word anymore. It is now flesh and blood. It’s lying in a manger.

Such complaints, whether I receive them from the laity or the clergy, I label verbalism. My computer blushes red at the word. There is no such word as verbalism. There is in my dictionary. Verbalism is putting too much stock in words. Verbalism is living by words and dying by words, and what’s worse yet, it’s making other, as well, live and die by words. Verbalism burned St. Joan of Arc at the stake in France for not having the right words for the Inquisitors’ questions.

With the risk of sounding angry or self-piteous or even dramatic, I tell you that verbalism (that demand that I say the right words) has plagued, pursued and persecuted me through fifty long years in this business. More importantly, verbalism in my book is as good a heresy as Nestorianism, Arianism, Monophysitism or Pelagianism, for it denies our Christian bottom line that the Word of God is not a word anymore but is now flesh and blood. It’s lying in a manger.

Christmas and words

There’s something about Christmas that doesn’t like words. At this time of the rolling year especially, we remind ourselves that when the fullness of time came and God wanted to say something very comprehensive and wonderful about himself, God did not say something; God did something. God did not beget a bible; God begot a baby! God did not deliver a sermon; God delivered a son, Jesus.

Christians too, like their Christmas God, should be leery about words--should be leery about the doctrinaire approach of religion which puts too much stock in the right answers of catechisms or in the recitations of creeds or in the exact mouthing of prescribed liturgical prayers. Christians should be leery about the doctrinaire approach to the great controversial issues of life, like abortion, capital punishment, celibacy, ordination, homosexuality and human sexuality. The profound solutions to those great issues do not lie in the words of our mouths but in the deep recesses of our hearts. Christians should be leery about preachers who have God down pat with a steady flow of words.

Christmas and stories

There’s something about Christmas that doesn’t like words but does, indeed, likes stories. Stories are words made flesh and blood. “And the Word became flesh.” And the Word became a story. At this time of the rolling year, the gospel readings at Mass have been telling us one story after the other. Once upon a time there was an old priest, Zachariah by name, offering incense before the altar of the Lord in the temple, and behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him and told him not to be afraid and promised that his barren wife Elizabeth was going to have a baby boy (Lk 1:5-25). Once upon a time there was a maiden at prayer and behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to her and told her not to be afraid. The Holy Spirit would overshadow her, and she would conceive a son and call him Jesus (Lk 1:26-38).

Once upon a time there was a man named Joseph, and he was puzzled about his espoused wife being with child. And behold, an angel of the Lord appeared and told him not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife, for what is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit (Mt 1:18-25). Once upon a time a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole world should be enrolled. While shepherds were keeping watch over their flocks by night, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to them saying, “Don’t be frightened. I bring you tidings of great joy. This day, in the city of David, a savior is born to you who is Christ the Lord. And this will be sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger” (Lk 2:1-14).

The Milwaukee story: act I

At this time of the rolling year, not only scripture but also the media has an irresistible urge to speak not with words but with stories. Every year it features classical favorites like Amahl and the Night Visitors, Miracle on 34th Street, and especially Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. The evening news, too, searches for a story bearing tidings of good news to balance off all the bad news of the fast-departing old year--like the price of gas or the price of the war in Iraq. When editors find a gem of a Christmas story, they anoint the front page of their newspaper with it.

Such a gem of a story graced the front page of the Milwaukee Journal for Saturday, December 8, 1984 (21 years ago). I always try to tell that story at this time of the rolling year. Good stories are meant to be told and retold to keep inspiring and energizing us over and over again. Eighty times the church has told me the Christmas story from the Mass of the Angels.

This story happened on 6^th of December, the feast of jolly old St. Nick, famous for his gift-giving. It begins as all good stories begin. Once upon a time there was a bus driver, whom everyone likes and calls Kojac. He's going west on Wisconsin Ave. It's about 3:30 in the afternoon and it's only l0 degrees above zero. Enters a woman, and she is tattered and torn, and she's pregnant, and she has no shoes on her feet! Mind you, 10 degrees outside and she has no shoes on her feet. School's out, and the bus is full of high school kids, and they're all making fun of her.

The bus pulls up to 124^th and Bluemound Road. A kid steps up to the front and is ready to get off. He's about fourteen years old -- just that perfect age when kids supposedly have no brains in their heads and are utterly selfish. "And then I saw the darnest thing I had ever seen in my life,” said the bus driver. "The darnest thing! This kid had his shoes in his hands, and his feet were bare! And he says to this woman: `Here, M’am, you need them more than I do!' I cried," said the big strapping bus driver. "I cried, and so did the woman!"

The Milwaukee story: act II

Well, the barefoot boy steps off the bus into the winter cold and Kojac wipes away the tears and off he drives his bus. But the story doesn’t die there. It comes to life again the next morning. The bus driver is on his route as usual, and he arrives at 124^th and Bluemound Road where the lad (Francis is his name) got off the day before. And lo and behold, an angel of the Lord appears! There stands the boy again! Kojac dashes out, lays hold of the angel and pulls him over to his bus. There he captures the story with his camera, for stories, flesh and blood that they are, are not only to be heard by the ear but also to be gazed upon by the eye. After the snapshot, big Kojac gets back into his bus, pulls out a long green handkerchief, blows his nose, wipes away the tears, and says, "That's Francis. He got me again!"

The next day, Saturday, December 8^th, the snapshot and story of big Kojac and little Francis anoints the front page of the Milwaukee Journal. The following morning, Sunday, December 9^th, the story goes forth by UPI to the entire nation to be read and seen by all. Even President Reagan reads the story and sends the boy a letter of thanks. By Sunday, hundreds and hundreds of others are joyfully weeping with Kojac over their cup of coffee and the Sunday newspaper.

That kid is, indeed, a hero because of his compassion and sensitivity. But he’s also a hero because of his courage in a bus full of peers demanding blue-jean conformity from him. His courage got him included in a book entitled Courageous Kids.

A practitioner of innocence

It is said of that other barefoot Francis, the one from Assisi, that he was neither a preacher of truth, nor was he an upholder of virtue. He was, instead, a practitioner of innocence. He chatted with the birds of the air. He talked things over with the ferocious wolf of Gubbio who was terrifying the local folk, and he pacified the beast. He bent down and kissed lepers, and he did many other flaky things.

The barefoot Francis from Milwaukee was also a practitioner of innocence. A kid like that doesn’t really lose his innocence by lying with some girl whom he really loves and to whom he's really committed. He certainly loses his virginity but not necessarily his innocence. That he loses when his peers and the prevailing culture manage to convince him to grow up and to put away his flaky nonsense and stop talking to the birds and beasts. He loses his innocence when his peers and the prevailing culture manage to convince him to keep his shoes on his feet and his feet solidly on firm ground, as he walks the cold icy paths of this hard cruel world about which he can’t do anything. When they convince him to act as they do, then, indeed, he loses his innocence.

Conclusion

The Christmas dismissal

Christmas isn’t for preaching truth. That simply puts us so-called followers of the Prince of Peace at odds with Jews and Muslims and Buddhists and everyone else who isn’t Christian. Christmas isn’t even for upholding virtue. That simply has us looking down our long noses at others or it endows us with political capital to solicit the right wing.

No. Christmas is for telling stories about big Kojac and little Francis. In so doing we make profession of the very heart of our faith that the Word of God isn’t a word anymore but is now flesh and blood. The Ite Missa est, the dismissal of the Christmas Mass, sends us forth, like the barefoot boy from Milwaukee and the barefoot man from Assisi and like Mother Mary herself --sends us forth to give flesh and blood to the Word of God.