It was a beautiful, calm, starry night. I was driving through the Punjab countryside to celebrate Mass in a village. With me were a catechist and two other Columban priests: Fr John Burger from the United States and Fr Finbar Maxwell from Ireland.
When we arrived in the village, I parked the car under a tree and we entered the small, simple church building. The people were sitting on mats on the floor, singing hymns robustly. I sat in the presider’s chair behind the waist-high altar in the centre of a raised platform at the front of the church. During the introductory rites of the Mass and the scripture readings, I felt uncomfortable sitting and standing so high above the people, so when it came to the homily, I sat on the platform step in front of the altar, putting myself at the same level as the congregation. In front of me and slightly to my right was a grandfather with his small granddaughter sitting in his lap.
I don’t recall the exact readings from the Mass, but I do remember my homily, not because of my words, which were ordinary enough, but because of the wondrous thing that happened as I spoke.
To show how God is closer to the sinner than to the righteous, I told the following story.
God binds us to God’s self with cords of love. When we sin, that cord is broken. But God does not reject us. God does not abandon us. God reaches out and ties a knot in the cord and restores our relationship. And God does this each time we sin. But each time God does this, some of the cord gets tied up in the knot.
The result is that the cord gets shorter and shorter and the sinner is pulled closer and closer to God. Thus, the greatest sinner whose cord of relationship with God has been tied again and again is closer to God than the one who has never sinned and has never had to have his cord re-tied.
As I told this story, sitting on the platform in front of the congregation, I reached out my arms towards the congregation to show how God reaches out to us. And as I did so, the little child in her grandfather’s lap responded and reached out to me, coming to sit on my lap, where she nestled comfortably as I continued the story.
What a wondrous image she presented to the congregation! What a fabulous tableau she formed for my listeners! The child resting contentedly on my lap was a living picture of the story I was telling of my Father in heaven. She was a living witness to how we ought to respond in trust and confidence to God’s reaching out to us in kindness, mercy and compassion and how we ought to do the same for each other.
As we drove home under the starry sky that night after Mass, my Columban companions and I reflected on the experience. They commented on how wonderfully appropriate that child’s spontaneous response was to my outstretched arms. Her leaning against my chest in perfect tranquillity as I concluded my homily portrayed how we ought to live in the presence of God. She was my homily personified. It was unplanned, perfect. It was sheer grace.
That night was not the 24th or 25th of December, but in truth, the image of the child in my Father’s arms was Christmas. We drove on in silence, awed by that moment of grace.
Silent night. Holy night. O night divine! O night when Christ was born!
Rev Dr Patrick McInerney
Regional Director of Oceania
directoroceania@columban.org.au
Listen to "From the Director – A living homily"
Related links
- Read more from The Far East - November/December 2025
