T. S. Eliot’s sermon from Murder in the Cathedral speaks
clearly of celebrating Christmas in a time of mourning. Archbishop Thomas Becket, facing his likely
martyrdom, preaches in Canterbury Cathedral on Christmas morning. At the Christmas Mass we celebrate at once
the Birth of Jesus Christ and His death on the Cross for our redemption. The next day we celebrate the martyrdom of
Steven. As we come to the celebration of
Christmas this year we do so with hearts torn between the joy of Christmas and
the death of little children. It is no
accident that Holy Innocents day falls also within the Christmas season.
Murder in the Cathedral ~ T.
S. Eliot Interlude
The Archbishop preaches in the Cathedral on Christmas
Morning, 1170 'Glory to God in
the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.' The fourteenth verse of the second chapter of the Gospel
according to Saint Luke. In the Name of the Father, and of
the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Dear children of God, my sermon this
morning will be a very short one. I wish only that you should ponder and
meditate the deep meaning and mystery of our masses of Christmas Day. For
whenever Mass is said, we re-enact the Passion and Death of Our Lord; and on
this Christmas Day we do this in celebration of His Birth. So that at the same moment we rejoice in His
coming for the salvation of men, and offer again to God His Body and Blood in
sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world.
It was in this same night that has just passed, that a multitude of
the heavenly host appeared before the shepherds at Bethlehem, saying, 'Glory to
God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men'; at this same
time of all the year that we celebrate at once the Birth of Our Lord and His
Passion and Death upon the Cross.
Beloved,
as the World sees, this is to behave in a strange fashion. For who in the World
will both mourn and rejoice at once and for the same reason? For either joy
will be overborne by mourning, or mourning will be cast out by joy; so it is
only in these our Christian mysteries that we can rejoice and mourn at once for
the same reason. 'But think for a while on the meaning of this word 'peace.'
Does it seem strange to you that the angels should have announced
Peace, when ceaselessly the world has been stricken with War and the fear of
War? Does it seem to you that the angelic
voices were mistaken, and that the promise was a disappointment and a cheat?
Reflect now, how Our Lord Himself spoke of Peace. He said to His
disciples 'My peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you.' Did He mean
peace as we think of it: the kingdom of England at peace with its neighbours,
the barons at peace with the King, the householder counting over his peaceful
gains, the swept hearth, his best wine for a friend at the table, his wife
singing to the children?
Those men His disciples knew no such things: they went forth to
journey afar, to suffer by land and sea, to know torture, imprisonment,
disappointment, to suffer death by martyrdom. What then did He mean? If you ask
that, remember then that He said also, 'Not as the world gives, give I unto
you.' So then, He gave to His disciples peace, but not peace as the world gives.
Consider
also one thing of which you have
probably never thought. Not only do we at the feast of Christmas celebrate at
once Our Lord's Birth and His Death: but on the next day we celebrate the
martyrdom of His first martyr, the blessed Stephen.
Is it an accident, do you think, that the day of the first martyr
follows immediately the day of the Birth of Christ? By no means.
Just as we rejoice and mourn at once, in the Birth and in the Passion of
Our Lord; so also, in a smaller figure, we both rejoice and mourn in the death
of martyrs. We mourn, for the sins of the world that has martyred them; we
rejoice, that another soul is numbered among the Saints in Heaven, for the
glory of God and for the salvation of men.
