Given at Westminster Cathedral for the Christmas Celebration on 18th and 19th December 2024.
My dear friends,
This evening we are enchanted by the beauty of the music and words filling this Cathedral. So I thank all who are using their skill, their application, and their love of what they are doing, to raise our hearts and minds to appreciate again, and more deeply, the wonder of this feast of Christmas.
From the rich store of our heritage, we are drawing on the music of 13th-century plainchant, English music from the 15th and 19th centuries, and from the 18th century, JS Bach, to mention but a few.
The words we are hearing are drawn from the Sacred Scriptures of the Jewish and Christian faiths, from the ancient prayers of the Latin Church, from G K Chesterton and the incomparable T S Eliot.
Music and words, from across the centuries, exploring and expressing the great Christmas truth that in Jesus, born in Bethlehem, the presence of God has entered our world in a new and definitive way. No amount of contrary noise or contemporary clamour can quieten this beauty.
On Tuesday I heard another voice also bearing witness, in poetry and song, to the wonder of the birth of Christ. This voice came from the plains of Nineveh, one of the cradles of our most ancient civilisations. It came from the Chaldean Catholic community who, along with other Christian groups, have carried their faith through every difficulty, even modern-day persecution.
You will recall that in 2014 the forces of ISIS captured the ancient city of Mosul. In two days 500,000 people fled the city, over 100,000 of them arriving in Erbil in one single night.
Out of this exodus comes the voice of the Chaldean Christian faith, alongside Syrian Catholics and Syrian Orthodox, singing the praise of God.
I can neither speak Aramaic nor sing in the unmistakable manner of those lands. But their words are so eloquent and add to the richness of our celebration.
They praise the one who is born:
'Kings of the earth and all nations
Kings, son of kings
Take off your crowns from your heads
And worship the firstborn
Holy Son who shone
From the blessed Mary
And came to save the world.
Glory be to you, O Lord
Glory be to you, O Son of God
Blessed be he who saved us by his birth.'
The following words exclaim the wonder of his birth, as a victory over fear and a proclamation of peace:
'Who saw a sheep
carrying a lion's cub
Should raise it and not fear.
Mary was the sheep
And Christ was the lion's cub
Should raise it and not fear.
Glory be to you, O Lord
Praise be to you, O Son of God
Who honoured Mary, your mother.'
But, in another beautiful hymn, they show forth the reason for this confidence. From across the centuries, in a land far from here, there is this proclamation of the fulness of our faith, its unique truth that gives its power and resilience: that this child is Emmanuel, God-in-our-Flesh.
Please listen to these words and allow your imagination to accompany them with the music of those lands, musical tones similar to those of the Islamic call to prayer:
'On the day of His birth, angels in heaven praised Him.
And the earthlings offered their offerings in humility.
One is Christ, the Son of God, worshipped by all in His two natures.
For by His divinity He was born of the Father
From the beginning before time.
And by His humanity He was born of Mary
In the fullness of time with a full body.
His divinity is not from the being of the mother
And His humanity is not from the being of (Joseph) the father.
We worship, O Lord, Your divinity and humanity perpetually.
To the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit forever and ever.
Amen and Amen.'
Here is expressed the very essence of our faith, for if Jesus is no more than a good man, then he has no power to change us; and if he is the presence of God only with the appearance of a human being, then his divine power remains out of our reach. But he is truly God and truly one with us, ever ancient, ever new. He alone, in his power of God, and by sharing our nature, can give us new life.
My dear friends, let us open our hearts and minds to the testimony of so many people, so many cultures, and so many lands, all declaring to us the reasons for our celebrations this evening and in the days to come. Please, let us not be slow to hear this testimony from the breadth and width of our human family. It will deepen the echo of faith in our hearts and minds and enrich our days of joy and celebration.
May Christ reign in our lives in this our own 21st century so that we may tackle our challenges with the same courage and resilience as those whose music and words have raised our hearts tonight.
A happy Christmas to you all!