Missalette Madness: The Many Mass Formulas for Christmas

Christmas is fast approaching, that one feast of the year where about everybody comes to Mass, which is encouraging to the soul but a logistical nightmare for liturgical and parking planning. My pastor announced on Saturday night [December 21] that the doors of the church would be unlocked at 2:30 PM on Christmas Eve, or 90 minutes before the first Mass at 4 PM “for those planning to save seats.” My church has two Christmas Masses at 4 PM, the second one in our social hall. I commiserate with my pastor on the “saving seats” matter: I have never attended the 4 PM Christmas in my present parish, but as a pastor in previous sites I know firsthand that—how do I put this--territorialism survives where the front row is concerned on Christmas Eve.

Sixty years ago, there was no such thing as a crowded cocktail hour Mass on Christmas Eve. The first Mass of Christmas was Midnight Mass in the Roman Missal. As an altar boy in the 1950’s I remember Midnight Mass as the premiere adult Mass of the Church year. Even parents with kids sent one adult representative to Midnight Mass, which was preceded by a majestic hour of the church choir climaxing with “O Holy Night” at 11:55. In my middle school years I would stand at the sacristy door in my surplice and cassock and get goose bumps. I even have olfactory memories of Midnight Mass in East Buffalo: there was a unique air about this Mass—a mix of incense, candle wax, perfume, tobacco, whiskey, and bad breath. There was a loophole in Church Law that nobody in authority seemed in a hurry to fix: the codes of the time clearly stated that one’s communion fast began at Midnight. Many of you may still remember that law. It is fair to say that a fair number attended Midnight Mass as the nightcap to an evening of celebration that just might have included alcohol. Even my maternal grandparents hosted a family party on Christmas Eve where the Genessee, Utica Club, and Iroquois beers were enjoyed, responsibly of course as we kids were present.

The fact that we as Catholics now have a late afternoon Mass [or multiple vigil Masses] on Christmas Eve is a direct result of Vatican II, which opened the doors again to a custom of celebrating high holy days with Vespers or Evening Prayer on the eve of the feast. [ Ruling by Pope Paul VI, December 1969.] Within a decade, the “Saturday Night Vigil Mass” became de rigour in most of the United States, in no small part because families could more easily attend Christmas Mass together. Under the older pre-Vatican II directives in Latin, the first Mass of Christmas, according to the Roman Missal, was a midnight celebration with its own set of prayers and scripture readings. If you owned a hardcover “daily Missal”—and some people followed the Mass that way as missalettes were still years down the road--you would find that the Roman Catholic instructions provided for three distinct formulas for Christmas Mass: Midnight, Dawn, and “during the day,” each with its own biblical selections and prayers.

With the liturgical changes of the 1960’s, it was soon obvious that the Christmas Mass schedule needed some fine tuning. Most urgent was a new Biblical format for a proposed Vigil Mass on Christmas Eve. [Readings available here in their entirety.]  The challenge was finding a fitting Gospel for the Vigil. The most detailed Christmas text was and remains St. Luke’s account, [see below], but it had been the staple of Midnight Mass liturgy for centuries. People today come to Mass expecting to hear St. Luke’s narrative. St. Mark has nothing on Christ’s birth, nor does St. John aside from the poetic and doctrinally rich hymn which opens his Gospel with Jesus’ baptism as an adult. The only option open to the missal writers was to insert the text of St. Matthew’s Gospel into a new Christmas vigil Mass on the drawing board. [see below] There were two problems with Matthew, though. The first is that his Christmas narrative begins with Jesus’ genealogy, which lists the forty-two generations between Abraham and Joseph. The second issue is Matthew’s limited information on the details of Jesus’ birth itself.

Of course, the editors left themselves an emergency exit by adding to the Lectionary a generous note for the Vigil Mass of December 24, which gives the celebrant of the vigil Mass the option of omitting the genealogy altogether and thus beginning the Gospel with Joseph and the Angel. However, by the time I was ordained in 1974 St. Luke’s Midnight Mass Gospel was becoming the unofficial “Christmas text” proclaimed at most or all Masses on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. The other Christmas Mass Gospel readings have distinct beauty and certainly inspired truth. So, if come Tuesday you get the onerous job of saving seats for your twenty-six relatives, and it is an hour till Christmas Mass, join me for a quiet stroll through all the Christmas Mass Gospels and some amazing genius from the evangelists. All the texts cited below should be available in your worship aid in your pew or from your phone by clicking the brown links to the New American Bible.

THE CHRISTMAS VIGIL MASS: [Missal: for use between 4 and 11 PM on Christmas Eve]
One might have expected to see St. Mark, the earliest evangelist, in the first Christmas Mass, but in fact St. Mark’s Gospel has no Christmas narrative at all. In fact, Mark’s Gospel has been called “A Passion Narrative with a long Introduction.” Mark has no mention of Jesus’ early life. The message of Mark is the cost of discipleship—i.e., the Cross.

St. Matthew’s entire Gospel is intended to establish the identity of Jesus as the new Moses, the fulfillment of the Hebrew Scriptures. So, it is not surprising that St. Matthew’s Christmas narrative begins with a genealogy from Abraham to Joseph, concluding with this sentence: “Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary. Of her was born Jesus who is called the Christ.” This is a clever phrasing, something like “If Mary’s child had not been conceived by the Holy Spirit, my son would be of Abraham’s blood.”

Moving on to the next portion, we have Matthew’s “annunciation” account, though in this case an unnamed angel lays out for Joseph the divine plan for Jesus’ birth. That Joseph, and not Mary, is featured in this account is reflective of Jewish culture and the role of the father in the family. Something to remember here is that the Church will be celebrating the Feast of the Epiphany in about ten days after Christmas. Matthew is the only evangelist to narrate the visit of the wisemen, and hence the Church saves a major portion of Matthew’s Christmas narrative for the Epiphany, where his Gospel is read every year.

THE MASS DURING THE NIGHT [Missal: for use between Midnight till before dawn.]
This Gospel text from Luke is reflected in your home Nativity setting, though to be liturgically correct, the three wise men do not belong there till January 6. But if I were a parent, I would put all three wisemen and the shepherds and the angels and the little drummer boy, if it helps, and tell my kids the Christmas story as you know it instinctively. When they grow up, they can read “The Catechist Café” for the subtleties. It is important to note for your adult study that Luke portrays the first people to behold the Savior as blue-collar workers. Matthew, by contrast, has royalty from the East.

Luke’s Gospel has become the “Christmas Gospel,” just as the Magi have become Matthew’s unique “Epiphany Gospel.” Whatever time you attend Mass on Christmas, expect to hear Luke’s Gospel.

THE MASS AT DAWN [Missal: Dawn]
On a few Christmases I celebrated a 6 AM parish Mass, using this Dawn option from the Missal. The Gospel text from Luke is a shorter piece taken from his longer Midnight Mass Gospel text. In every parish that I have been associated with, there was always a contingent of parishioners who craved a sunrise Mass or a 6 A.M. Mass. My recollection is that attendance was surprisingly good at Christmas and Easter dawn Masses, with lots of children [!] who had not opened their Santa presents yet. We had no music, and I led two or three favorite carols from the sanctuary. I ignored my prepared Christmas sermon and talked straight to the children about the shepherds waiting for their present from heaven. A three-minute sermon. [“Boy, can you do that every week, father?”] As a celebrant, I enjoyed this dawn Mass immensely. The kids all behaved despite their nervous apprehension about what Santa might have brought them, and the senior citizens looked like they were in heaven.

Look at all three Scripture readings for this dawn Mass. They are all unusually brief. On purpose? Did St. Nick bring the Vatican Cardinals extra cigars and brandy during the planning phase years ago? If I learned anything from three months in Ireland, it is possible to experience Mass as devout, simple, and brief.
 
MASS DURING THE DAY [Missal: During the Day]
It is unfortunate that we do not hear St. John’s Gospel more often—and particularly this Gospel text used on Christmas Day as soon as the sun rises. St. John’s Gospel is not one of the three Gospels in the three-year liturgical cycle. St. John is reserved for major feasts—Holy Thursday, Good Friday, the three Lenten Sundays of the Catechumenate—and of course Christmas, though the text and the subject matter of John’s is not always recognized as “traditional Christmas.” But this text is among the most sacred of the entire New Testament. It is the inspiration for the doctrinal formulations of the Nicene Creed, a summary of everything we believe about Jesus the Christ. You probably won’t hear it at your Christmas Mass this week but find time to read and pray over the text.

The next Café post will be later in the week. But the Café is open 24 hours! Margaret and I will be attending the 7 PM Vigil Mass in our parish. As we age, we are sliding earlier. We used to go at Midnight, then we went earlier at 9 PM, and now we go at 7 PM, where we always find a good seat. Will we ever go at 4 PM? In a word, no.