Bishop Brendan Leahy Christmas Reflection 2018

This year the Christmas carol, “Silent night”, celebrates its 200th birthday. It was composed by Fr. Joseph Mohr, a young priest in Austria. There had been terrible violence in Salzburg in the summer of 1816 and he wrote “Silent night” as a reflection on peace. Two years later, on Christmas Eve, his friend Franz Xaver Gruber, a schoolteacher and organist, set the words to music. Together in the small town of Oberndorf, they first performed the song, Mohr singing and Gruber playing the guitar because the church organ was broken. The rest is history. The “Silent Night” carol spread in popularity throughout the world. It has been translated into 300 languages.

We know that the Christmas carol was used to build up spirits of soldiers getting together for a short Christmas respite from fighting during the First World War in 1914. There is indeed something soothing and peaceful about the music and the words, “sleep in heavenly peace”.

But a key phrase in the carol comes in the third verse: “Son of God, love's pure light, Radiant beams from Thy holy face, With the dawn of redeeming grace”. The reference to the dawn speaks of hope, new light, and new beginnings. The night is over, a new day is coming.

There can be situations in life when we or those we love feel imprisoned in our past. Christmas wants to say to us: you don’t have to be imprisoned. God has entered into your life, our world, and the world of all those you love. Trusting in him, you can reach out beyond any situation of sin or division or suffering. He has come precisely to redeem you, to redeem your relationship, to redeem, that is, to free, to break open, to overcome any obstacle you may feel at this time.

And it helps to remember that if God has come as redeeming grace for you, he has come also for those around you, particularly those you might least get on with.

Recently, someone said to me, it is great to remember that not only does God love me immensely, but he also loves each person I meet immensely. God has come for everyone.

So this year as we celebrate Christmas, let’s remember the Christmas carol and recognise it’s not just a song about peace in our hearts, it’s also a statement that the dawn of redeeming grace has come for everyone. And what’s more, it reminds us that each of us can be a dawn of redeeming grace for those we meet by the love we show them, We can sing “Silent night” not just with our voices or play it on the guitar. We can communicate it with our lives. Every blessing and Happy Christmas to you and your family.

+ Brendan Leahy