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Summary
- Midnight Mass is the Mass during the Night, the second of the four Masses of Christmas, and its Gospel is Luke 2:1-14, the birth of Jesus and the angels’ message to the shepherds.
- It need not start at midnight: Pope Leo XIV began his first Midnight Mass at 10 p.m. on 24 December 2025, and in 2020 the Bavarian bishops said most of their parishes began it at 10 or 10:30 p.m.
- The Vigil Mass on the evening of 24 December is a different Mass, with Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus as its Gospel, and it fulfills the Christmas obligation just as any of the four Christmas Masses does.
- Rome’s three Christmas Masses probably followed the night and day celebrations of Bethlehem and Jerusalem, and Pope Gregory the Great, who died in 604, preached that “we are to say three Masses today.”
- At Christmas the whole congregation genuflects in the Creed at the words “and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man.”
- Non-Catholics are welcome, though other Christians are ordinarily not admitted to Communion, and the US bishops’ guidelines invite those not receiving to pray for unity.
Bibliography (Click to show)
- Scripture: King James Version (public domain), via BibleGateway: Isaiah 9:2; Luke 2:8; Luke 2:14. Douay-Rheims Bible, 1899 American edition (public domain): Wisdom 18:14-15.
- United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Liturgical Calendar for the Dioceses of the United States of America 2027 (readings of the four Christmas Masses and the Easter Vigil), usccb.org.
- United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Committee on Divine Worship, Guidelines for the Publication of Participation Aids (Appendix II), including the Guidelines for Receiving Communion (1996), usccb.org.
- United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Complementary norm to canon 1246 §2, Holy Days of Obligation, usccb.org.
- Code of Canon Law, canons 1246–1248, Holy See, vatican.va; canon 919, vatican.va.
- General Instruction of the Roman Missal, nos. 53, 137 and 204, vatican.va.
- Universal Norms on the Liturgical Year and the General Roman Calendar (1969), no. 34, Liturgy Office of England and Wales, liturgyoffice.org.
- Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy (2001), nos. 109–111, vatican.va.
- Congregation for Divine Worship, Paschale Solemnitatis (16 January 1988), nos. 77–83, text published by Adoremus, adoremus.org.
- C. C. Martindale, “Christmas,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 3 (1908), newadvent.org.
- George Roger Hudleston, “Pope St. Gregory I (the Great),” The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 6 (1909), newadvent.org.
- Pope St Gregory the Great, Homily 8 on the Gospels, as the seventh lesson of Matins for Christmas in the Roman Breviary (English of the 1879 Marquess of Bute translation), Divinum Officium project source files, github.com.
- Traditional Roman Missal, Sunday within the Octave of Christmas, Introit (Wisdom 18:14-15), Divinum Officium project source files, github.com.
- Pope Leo XIV, Homily at the Mass during the Night, St Peter’s Basilica, 24 December 2025, vatican.va.
- “Pope Leo’s liturgical celebrations for November through January,” Vatican News, 30 September 2025, vaticannews.va.
- “Pope Leo XIV’s first ‘Christmas of Peace’,” Vatican News, 24 December 2025, vaticannews.va.
- Bavarian bishops, “Stellungnahme der bayerischen Bischöfe zur Ausgangssperre an Heiligabend,” Erzbistum München und Freising, 15 December 2020, erzbistum-muenchen.de.
- University of Warsaw, Virtual Museum of Polish Emigration, “Wigilia,” muzeumpolonii.uw.edu.pl; St. Mary’s Polish Parish, Sydney, Nova Scotia, “Polish Christmas Eve Traditions,” stmaryspolishchurch.ca.
- Real Academia Española and ASALE, Diccionario de la lengua española, “misa” (misa de gallo, o misa del gallo), dle.rae.es.
- Cultural Center of the Philippines, “Simbang Gabi at the CCP” (December 2022), culturalcenter.gov.ph.
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