Christmas Night Homily
This Christmas, I found myself at Mass at my granddaughter’s school in Washington, DC. Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart—a small chapel, an intimate gathering. The celebrations held that quality of closeness where every word matters, where presence itself becomes prayer.
The Nigerian priest who celebrated Mass that evening remains unnamed in my notes, though his homily has stayed with me like light through a window. His focus: coming into the light—a major theme of Advent and Christmastide. But Father made this achingly personal. His words centered not on the presence of God, but on our practiced art of turning away.
He spoke of his own darkness—a time when depression rendered him to long days of sadness in his room, the curtains drawn, the world shut out. Until a fellow priest entered, crossed the room, and threw back those curtains.
“Come out into the light,” the priest said.
In that moment, everything shifted. What followed in his homily was not performance but presence—authentic love pouring through words, gesture, the very movement of his hands. This was real.
He offered three invitations.
Come Into The Light
Do not remain in the darkness. This was his first call. Not a command but an invitation.
Remaining ignorant of God’s presence can be an accident or a choice. We all have free will. The expression of love in the world is how God’s presence is detected. Where love is absent, other wills make themselves known. Simple, really, when you see it this way.
How often do we choose the familiar shadows over the unfamiliar light? We know where the walls are in darkness. We’ve learned to navigate by feel. But the invitation remains: step into the doorway where morning breaks.
Regardless of our spiritual path, love draws us. Even those who feel unloved yearn for it. This is turning the light on. Coming out of the darkness. If you are darkening someone else’s room, you could do something to change that.
Release The Past
Being present is where we live our lives. And yet many define themselves by what others say they are, or what they say about themselves. The past becomes identity. Where we have been becomes who we are. This is a choice, not a permanent state of being.
Our past whispers of who we were. But the present moment—this breath, this choice, this opening—speaks of who we might become. Keeping God in the frame, discerning rather than deciding, exploring instead of retracting, discovering where the light is, or could be, and then following it—this makes all the difference.
Our past is not us. It’s where we have been, not where we are going, unless we choose to return there.
What would it mean to release the stories others have told about you?
What would it cost to release the stories you’ve told yourself?
Embrace Responsibility
Even as children, we learn the benefit of not being the “guilty one.” Quickly, we develop skills to blame others for where we are, or what we might become.
How much energy flows into changing others? How little remains for transforming ourselves?
Many spend their lives trying to change the behavior of those around them. Yet psychologists and spiritual directors tell us the same truth: the person who has the greatest opportunity to change us is ourselves.
Still, we spend so much time trying to become someone who is trying to mold us, and then blame them for how it turned out. I took the wrong advice. Made the wrong move. Went to the wrong school. Picked the wrong job.
The list goes on.
And while others certainly play a part in shaping our path, blaming them for what happens to us will not help in the long run. We are, to a certain extent, masters of our own destiny. To claim this mastery, we must become more vulnerable, willing to take responsibility for our decisions and their outcomes.
This is not burden but liberation. Not guilt but grace. The freedom to choose, again and again, the direction we will turn.
Coming Home
And so we return to that Christmas Mass, to curtains thrown back, to light flooding a darkened room.
The invitation is always the same:
Come into the light.
Not tomorrow.
Not when you’re ready.
Not when you’ve figured it all out.
Now.
This moment.
Here.