Here is the homily of Archbishop Leo Cushley of St Andrews & Edinburgh, delivered at St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh, Christmas Midnight Mass, 2025.
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A very Merry Christmas to you all, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ!
Some of you will know that I was recently in the Holy Land.
I was there in the middle of October and, as chance would have it, I arrived at Tel Aviv Airport on my way to Galilee on the very afternoon that President Trump was visiting after the Gaza accords had been put in place, agreements intended to bring the conflict in Gaza to an end and to start a new chapter of peace and development in the region.
These events naturally coloured the next few days that I was to spend in Israel and in the West Bank and, when I had the chance, I asked those on the ground what they felt about them and how they saw the future. And almost everyone I spoke to expressed cautious optimism for the future.
And perhaps that was to be expected.
They had all been there before, but they were also willing to wait and see this time.
I also found myself comparing this with my own experience a while back, when I had worked in a country going through a civil war.
I was four years there, helping the Holy See and the local Catholic Church quietly go about their business in bringing assistance at every level to the country.
The work included interacting with everyone from leaders of states and governments in international dialogue involving people as grand as Nelson Mandela, all the way down to helping in food distributions in the hills around the capital to people who had fled their homes and who had almost nothing except the clothes on their backs.
And there was something that everyone involved in these events had in common.
Everyone, from top to bottom in the country, was tired. Everyone was tired. Everyone was afraid. And ordinary people simply wanted peace.
Most of them just wanted a roof over their heads, peace at the door, and a safe future for their children. Everything else was less important: whether there would be democracy, or good government, or international assistance, or even justice.
They just wanted peace.
And I heard and saw something very similar in the Holy Land just a few weeks ago. People were tired. They were afraid. They just wanted peace, and safety for their loved ones.
They also wanted a roof over their heads, some food on the table, at perhaps one day the possibility of prosperity and a modicum of happiness, living at home, in their own land. Statehood and justice and freedom from corruption would be great, too, but first things first.
Peace, freedom from fear, and a safe place to live and work, and some food on the table.
It also struck me how this mirrors what Joseph and Mary faced all those years ago, as she prepared to give birth to her first-born son.
First century Palestine was not peaceful, or prosperous, or happy.
There was a kind of security at the spear tips of the Roman legions, but it was hardly welcomed.
And yet it is in this unpeaceful, unsafe, unhappy world, that God’s Son is revealed.
Into this unhappy place, God sends his messengers to declare, to declare once and for all time, “Peace on earth, good will to all people”.
Given that context, and indeed our own context, there is a profound paradox here.
We believe that our God is a God of peace. We call Jesus the Prince of Peace, and rightly so.
So, what can it mean when we seem not only to be incapable of establishing peace, but rather that we see conflicts rumble on in spite of our best efforts?
Perhaps a part of the answer comes from the people on the ground, be it the Holy Land, Ukraine, Sudan, elsewhere. They are tired, they are afraid, and they badly want peace.
Surely, peace and safety for your loved ones shouldn’t be too much to ask. Life isn’t always fair, but surely, we here, who have the chance to live safely and reflect calmly on these things, can see in the face of our fellows in the Holy Land, our own face.
The broken hearts, the anger, the fear: if it was us, we would look like that too. That should surely spur us to work for a peace that is good for all our fellow men and women.
Pope Leo describes the peace of Christ as “the most silent of revolutions… a peace that is unarmed and disarming, humble and persevering [and] it comes from God who loves us unconditionally” (LEO XIV, Message for the 59th World Day of Peace, 2026).
In times that are becoming increasingly uncertain, we who are disciples of the Prince of Peace, are again being called to do what we can to make “Peace on earth” into an enduring reality; not the cold, dread peace of death, but a living, strong, committed peace that is the happy fruit of a sustained, courageous, patient, and concrete effort to establish it again in our times.
St Paul famously stated that the peace of Christ is beyond all understanding (Phil 4:7). His is a peace that is better, greater, longer, and happier than anything we are able to establish for ourselves. We rely on Jesus Christ. But we have our role to play in it as well.
And Jesus and his family have been there before us. Jesus and his family knew what it was to be tired, to be afraid, to be without a roof, to want peace.
As he becomes one of us today, in flesh like ours, God with Us, Jesus in the stable in Bethlehem knows what it’s like. He fully shares our humanity and its frailty.
May he also share with us his glory, his peace and his divine love for all peoples, so that we can learn from him how to build a world without fear, and a world in which everyone has a chance to live in happiness, in safety and in peace.
A very happy and holy Christmas to you all!
