Christmas Day, Midnight Mass (2025) - Fr Matthew Boland, OP

Tonight we celebrate one of the great feasts of the Church year. It is a wonderful time of year, partly because it is so familiar and filled with good memories. Seeing the Christmas lights on the houses, hearing the familiar and yet still beautiful carols we heard before Mass, and all the Christmas smells. Sometimes smells can take you right back to the past. For me, the smell of a Christmas tree can bring the memories of Christmases past rushing back. And then of course there are the presents—lots and lots of presents!

All these things are great. But they’re only on the surface; they point to something deeper. What we might call ‘the reason for the season’. Of course, this is the birth of Christ. To celebrate Christmas without remembering this would be like having a birthday party without inviting the person whose birthday it is. It just wouldn’t make sense. So tonight we put Christ at the centre of our celebration. After all, it is his party. The very name ‘Christmas’ means Christ’s Mass.

We can celebrate Christ’s birth because, although he is God himself, he has become part of human history. In doing that, he reveals God to us—Jesus shows us what God is like, as one of us, as a human being.

In tonight’s Gospel, to highlight what Jesus is like, Luke contrasts him with another famous historical person. The first two words of the Gospel tell us his name: ‘Caesar Augustus’. This name stands at the beginning of the Gospel, almost like a challenge. Who was Caesar Augustus? You might say that he represents all the power and glory of the world. Julius Caesar, his great-uncle, adopted Augustus as his son and made him his heir. Augustus was the first, and arguably the greatest emperor of Rome, which itself stands as one of the greatest empires in history. He ruled for 40 years, and boasted just before he died that when he became emperor he had found Rome built of brick, and left it built of marble. One of the great achievements of his reign was the Pax Romana, the ‘Roman peace’. This allowed people to travel freely throughout the empire, an amazing thing in the ancient world. After his death, he was worshipped as a god. But all the great things he did in his life: the building projects, the great military victories, even the Roman Peace itself, were built on violence, coercion, and lust for power.

This is the person Luke puts in the background of tonight’s Gospel. The one who on a human level is seemingly all-powerful. Luke tells us that Augustus commands ‘that all the world should be registered’. Augustus wants to count up all that belongs to him. In a way, this is the ultimate exercise of power: to force all to register as subjects of his empire. One of these subjects of Caesar Augustus is a little baby boy, born in a stable in Bethlehem, without much earthly fanfare, the child Jesus. Born into this tenuous peace, this Pax Romana, is the one whom Isaiah calls the ‘Prince of Peace’. But he brings a peace not based on violence or the threat of violence, but based on true power: the power of truth, the power of sacrifice, the power of divine love.

What a contrast there is between these two men. Augustus, who has so much earthly power, and uses it to dominate and subdue. Jesus, who is truly all-powerful, who created the whole universe, including Augustus himself, and comes into this world as a poor, helpless infant. He could crush Augustus and his whole empire in an instant; but he doesn’t. His is not a kingdom of violence. Jesus shows us what true power is. In this contrast, perhaps we see what St Paul means when he tells us that the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

Jesus did come to found a kingdom, and in the end it will be the only true kingdom, but it is not one based on domination and fear. He comes to teach us a new way. Not the way of coercion and domination, but the way of light. We heard Isaiah prophesy in the opening of our First Reading: ‘the people that walked in darkness have seen a great light’. We do walk in a world that is dark. A land of deep shadow, where in many places the powerful dominate and the weak are oppressed. But a great light has shone in this darkness—the light of Christ. A light that calls us to be merciful and just: to be like Christ. In becoming man, Jesus reveals God to us; but he also shows us what it is to be truly human. This is the Christian life: to become like him; to become, through grace, other Christs.

Among the many contrasts between Jesus and Augustus, there is one which stands out. While Augustus forced everyone to be members of his kingdom, Jesus forces no one to join his. As we have seen, his is not a kingdom of coercion. He has done his best to win us over by showing how much he loves us, by descending from heaven to become one of us, and by giving everything for us, even his own life. If that doesn’t win us over, nothing will.

So, this Christmas, let’s allow ourselves to be won over once again by the truth of the Gospel and the love of God. A God who so loved the world that he sent his only Son, a little infant, born in a stable in Bethlehem. Of course we will enjoy the parties, the food, and all the sights, sounds, and smells of Christmas. And especially the presents. But in the midst of all that, let us not forget the guest of honour at our celebration: Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

Fr Matthew Boland, OP is the Master of Students, assigned to St Dominic's Priory, Melbourne.