Do you remember where you were as Christmas came in last year? Five years ago? How about 20? I do. As Christmas Eve slipped away with its anticipation and promise,giving way to a brand new Christmas morning, church chimes would sound and a choir begun singing "Joy To The World" and you knew it was Christmas. You felt it .... washing over you ,the spirit of Christmas stripped of greed,commercialism and the frills. It was Christmas, raw and spiritual and shared with friends,neighbors and strangers gathered in the neighborhood church greeting a new Noel as one. A service with the carols that accompanied the best story I've ever heard. There was no room at the inn ,setting the stage for the miracle that comes alive every year at this time. I get a chill processing to Communion to the strains of "Silent Night" and after mass, the hearty handshakes,the joy we felt because it was Christmas and we'd made it there together.
Homes would still be lit on the way home even though it was nearly 1 AM. Sometimes the crunch of snow beneath your feet , a moonlit sky that you knew was being checked by a number of kids who should have been asleep hours ago,and those glowing lights. I would never be experiencing any of these things were it not for the one night a year we go to mass at midnight.
I guess I'll find out what it's like to be without many of these holiday pleasures this year because as is the trend with many churches these days,midnight mass won't be at midnight. It will be at 10 PM. We will commemorate the birth of the Christ child the night before it happened. The readings will be the same,the story every bit as wonderful but so much like the cake before the entree. It won't be Christmas and I can't pretend it will be. Midnight Mass was the conclusion of my favorite day of the year. I spend the evening with friends at an annual gathering,then hosted a small gathering of my own with those with whom I would attend mass.We would visit and enjoy holiday treats until 11:30,in church in time to begin the Christmas countdown with a carol service. With the conclusion of each wonderful song,you felt Christmas creeping closer.
You can say that after 10 PM service it will still be dark,the lights will still be glowing,the skies as hopeful with the promise of all things magic and miraculous.The ingredients will all still be there. But it won't be Christmas. I won't feel Christmas take hold,won't feel the eve slip away,won't celebrate making it to another Christmas with a congregation of believers.
I know earlier "midnight" mass may be good news to many. The church may be more crowded as people who are sleeping at 12 AM will now be able to attend.Many attendees will have less liquor in them and everyone will feel safer because the hour won't be as late and that translates to safer streets to many though I'm not sure the crime rates is particularly high on this particular night.
This is the way it is,the way it has become and I don't blame anyone for not subscribing to my point of view. Christmas is as personal as your religion and your political leanings and there is no right or wrong way to celebrate . I will miss Midnight Mass and everything it embodies to me,everything it means to me. I wonder if,months from now, I'll remember where I was when Christmas 2010 arrives .
It might be at a church that still welcomes the new Christmas morning with a mass at midnight.
