The Shortest Prayer for Christmas Eve

This Christmas, just compared with last year’s, feels so much different. All of us know why, because of the global pandemic of Covid 19. However, Christmas always is the same. We celebrate the wonderful news, that the Saviour of the World has been born! Like children, yearning for truth, we contemplate the Crib.

We need this good news more than ever. What is different, perhaps, that the familiar words this year have regained their full weight. We are in such a need of our Saviour, and our Healer, the Incarnate Son of God. Today, on this Holy Night, we can share the expectation of past generations. People cried out to God in times of crisis. For them the Saviour was real. Let us cherish this gift of faith, that God, the Christian message of Christmas has become real for us.

God was always real, true, and faithful. It was us who have chosen to be ‘unreal’, unfaithful, and self-centered. Tonight, we celebrate that the Angel’s song is real. The pastors are real. The manger, with the animals, with the Mother of God, and Joseph, and with the Baby Jesus is real. Just as we are present for him now. All we have is the gift of our presence. Our prayer is the shortest this evening. Let it echo in us in the coming days. Newborn King, child-Jesus, ‘Save us. Use us. Use me’. We all want to be yours. Let this prayer echo in us, in this Eucharist, and on our way home, and when we awake tomorrow morning to savour the good news of tonight: ‘Let us all rejoice in the Lord, for our Saviour has been born in the world. Today true peace has come down to us from heaven!’
 
25.12.2020