Given at Westminster Cathedral for the Christmas Celebration on 17th and 18th December 2025.
“Lift up your heads and see, your redemption is at hand!”
This is the great cry of Advent guiding our preparation for Christmas.
My dear friends, one thing in life is more important than all others: our relationship with God. It’s from God that our life comes. It’s to God that our life is destined. And God pervades our every moment, whether we attend to Him or not.
And not attending to God seems the normal way of life for us. There are so many other things demanding our attention: family needs, workplace tensions, gloomy headlines, the fears and anxieties of our hearts. No wonder we have little time for God.
Let me tell you about a friend of mine. One day, a few years ago, he said to me:
“I’m going to get married. Yes, we've been together over 30 years, but now I’m getting married!” I asked him: “What brought this on?” He answered: “My granddaughter. She sat on my knee and said ‘Grandad, why are you and Grandma not married?’ That was it!”
From the mouth of a child came a question. It broke through every other issue in the mind of my friend, commanding his attention and requiring a response. And, true enough, a few months later he was back, puffing out his chest and declaring with great pride: “I’m a married man!”
This evening, as we enjoy the beauty of this music and of the words proclaimed to us, we are getting ready to face a similar moment. Shortly we will come face to face with a child, a baby, who will pose a question to us and, I trust, a personal response. You see, in the eyes of this child there is a longing, a yearning, a searching for each of us. And the question:
“Do you understand why I have come? Do you know who has sent me here to be with you? Do you know how much I love you and what I will do for you, the gift of life that I bring?”
(Well, that's more than one question!)
At the crib this Christmas we are faced with these questions, delivered by a child, without guile, with nothing but love.
Coming to the crib we can be just like the shepherds. They came without hesitating,
not sure what it was all about, abandoning their sheep. Yet they quickly fell to their knees, knowing instinctively that they had found a treasure, a light that was transforming their lives, filling them with joyful hope.
Or we can come to the crib like the kings, with their first-class travel, their wealth, their superior knowledge and their desire for more. They not only fell to their knees but also presented to the child their richest gifts, symbolising their very selves, their living and dying: their gold, incense and myrrh.
Wealthy or struggling, comfortable or feeling bereft, we too come to this child. There is no barrier to overcome, no entry requirement. And the child will speak directly to our hearts, if we heed him.
This child will plead for our love in response to his. He will open our hearts to our loving Father, from whom he comes. He will understand our anxieties and fears and he will comfort us, for he promises to be with each one of us, always, to the end of our days. Only then can he fulfil his purpose, of carrying us, at the last, to our Heavenly Father for our eternal joy.
This is his lasting desire, his thirst for our love, his yearning to speak to us, heart to heart so that we may live!
The undying love of this child unfolds as he grows. It flows into his radical self-giving on the cross of Calvary. It flows onward into the life of the Church, particularly in the Blessed Sacrament of his broken body and his precious blood. We meet him there and in our private prayer. He touches our lives with his presence in a thousand subtle and quiet ways which, so often, we are too busy to notice. Angels do his bidding for us, just as they did for the shepherds. They come in those who prompt and provide goodness in our lives, those to whom we say: “You are an angel!” Stars guide us, as they did the Wise Men. They do so through those who touch our lives with wisdom, who open our eyes to wider horizons, to more distant and generous ambitions.
And as we become more aware of these gifts of love and wisdom, more attentive to the sacraments and their grace, we will slowly realise how much our Blessed Lord draws us into his love. In doing so, each day he summons us to a new and better way of living. As he breathes his love into our lives, he calls us to a deeper compassion and forgiveness for others, a more willing service of those in any need, a more peaceful and composed heart.
“Who do you say I am?” he asks. And we reply:
“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!” And Jesus says:
“Happy the eyes that see what you see.”
Indeed, we rejoice that you, Our Lord and King, are amongst us. We honour and worship you. This is indeed our happy Christmas!