Christmas 2025

Homily

Most Rev Timothy Costelloe SDB
Archbishop of Perth

Wednesday 24 & Thursday 25 December, 2025
St Mary’s Cathedral, Perth

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From this year on, Christmas 2025 here in Australia will, tragically, always be at least partly associated with the terrible events which unfolded less than two weeks ago in Bondi, where so many members of the Jewish community, our brothers and sisters in the family of Abraham’s spiritual descendants, had gathered to celebrate their belief, which we as Christians share, that God brings light out of darkness. Mindless hatred sought to extinguish that light and for a time it seemed to have succeeded. Indeed, for fifteen innocent people, the youngest of whom was only ten years old, the light of life was indeed snuffed out. Many more were injured, some scarred permanently. This has led to unbearable grief for their families and friends and for the wider Jewish community. We are still living with the dreadful shock of these events. As I begin these few words tonight (today), I want to ask you all to remember and pray for those who have died, for their families, and for all those who are enduring the pain and trauma of the injuries they received on that day. We must remember, on tonight of all nights, that Jesus belonged to the Jewish faith. So did His mother, her husband Joseph, and all Jesus’s first followers.  As we celebrate the birth of the man whom we call the Prince of Peace, let us pray with open hearts that God, in His mercy, will bring peace to the troubled and broken hearts of all who have been impacted by these terrible events.

But let us join, too, with all our fellow Christians as we welcome Christ once again into our lives and into our hearts. Let us allow ourselves to be caught up in the mystery of that first Christmas night and gaze with the eyes of faith on that small dwelling in the little town of Bethlehem, where we see Mary and Joseph overcome with joy and wonder at the birth of this little child.

As the story unfolds, told in different ways in the gospels of Saint Luke and Saint Matthew, we will also see the shepherds who gather around the crib. We sometimes think of the shepherds in a romantic way, imagining them to be gentle animal lovers. In fact, in Jesus’ time, shepherds were tough, uneducated men who lived out in the open in difficult conditions. They were often looked down upon by everyone else and were rejected and mistrusted. And yet it was these people whom God chose to be the first to hear about the good news of the birth of the saviour, the Son of God. Is God perhaps reminding us, through this choice, that our way of seeing people and judging people is very different to God’s way? The people we might look down on or regard as unimportant may be the very people through whom God seeks to speak to us. Perhaps, tonight (today) God is inviting us to look with fresh eyes, letting go of our prejudices and recognising in each person, even the smallest and the weakest, an image of God himself.

Not tonight (today) in most cribs, but in a few days’ time, the wise men will also make an appearance. We often think of them as kings and imagine that there were three of them because the gospel speaks of the three gifts they offered. In fact, the gospel only tells us that some wise men came from the East. Whether they were rulers or spiritual leaders in their own cultures, they were certainly very different from the shepherds. They would have been well-educated, probably wealthy, and certainly well-respected. And yet, more than anything else, these wise men were seekers; people who had come to realise that there was more to life than the ordinary things they could see around them. They were men who had not allowed the day-to-day concerns and challenges of life to blind them to the deeper truths which we can so easily miss. They were open to the search for God in their lives. And so God chose them, just as He chose the shepherds, to be a part of the Christmas story. Tonight (today), through the presence of the Wise Men, God is reminding us that there is more to life than meets the eye; that He and His love are at the heart of everything, and that we will always be unsettled and unsatisfied until we make room for Him in our lives.

As well as the shepherds and the wise men, of course, we see Joseph and Mary. Joseph stands out in the gospel story as a man of extraordinary fidelity. Although he doesn’t understand the mystery that has overtaken his life, he remains faithful to Mary and to God. Like Joseph, we too do not always understand what God is doing, especially when our lives are overtaken by difficulty, by sadness or by confusion, but if we can put our trust in God and commit ourselves to remaining faithful to Him, then we will eventually find the peace in our lives that only God can give. 

And then there is Mary, the great model of fidelity and of trust. She was able to say yes to all that God was asking of her, not just at the beginning when the angel came to her, but all through her life. Mary was still there at the foot of the cross, watching her beloved son die, not fully understanding the mystery of God’s plan, perhaps, but still faithful to it. As Saint Luke’s gospel reminds us, Mary treasured everything that happened to her and pondered over it in her heart. She reflected, and pondered, and prayed over everything and so came to understand more clearly the mysterious ways in which God was working in her life.

Joseph, Mary, the shepherds, the wise men: all these people offer us something tonight (today): courage, fidelity, openness to God, perseverance, and prayerful reflection. The most important thing they all offer us, however, is this: each one had his or her eyes fixed on Jesus, the tiny child lying in the manger. God had called each of them to come to the stable to welcome the one who is God among us. That same God has called each one of us here to the Cathedral tonight (today) for the very same reason: so that we can encounter Christ, who is God among us, and welcome him into our lives. Tonight (today), He is born for us, the Prince of Peace, who brings with Him the gift of peace which can enrich our lives. As we welcome Him, let us also learn from Him to be peacemakers, builders of communion and open-hearted acceptance, in our families, among our friends and acquaintances, our communities, our societies and our country need peacemakers now more than ever. Let each of us tonight (today) resolve to be, as disciples of the Prince of Peace, counted among the peace-makers.

I wish you all a very happy and holy Christmas.