Happy Christmas

 

 

 

 

“God made Himself small

 

so that we could understand Him,

 

welcome Him and love Him” Pope Benedict XVI

 

We send all our readers our greetings and best wishes for Christmas and the coming New Year.  Remembering you in our prayer.

 

Christmas Reflection

 



“The people that walked in darkness

has seen a great light;

on those who live in a land of deep shadow

a light has shone…….

For there is a child born for us

a son given to us”  (Isaiah Ch 9).

This theme of ‘light dispelling darkness’ is like a silver thread woven into the Advent and Christmas liturgies.  As we look around our world we become aware of a great darkness – a lack of faith and hope as is evidenced by the violence and corruption, poverty and hunger, sickness and suicides – so many people wandering aimlessly searching for happiness which always eludes them.  No doubt we need go no further than our own heart to become aware of the darkness – after all the heart is the battleground between darkness and the light and to the extent that the light triumphs in the hearts of individual men and women there will be light in our world at large.

Tonight we celebrate the breaking onto our world of darkness of a Light which is eternal as we sing at the Day Mass “Today a great light has shone down upon the earth.” The “glory of the Lord” shone around the shepherds when the angel brought them “news of great joy – a joy to be share with all the people”

Our God who is Love and who lives in “inaccessible light” has broken into our world – the Word who is the “radiant light of the God’s glory” (Heb 1:3) has taken on our human nature, sin excepted, and has become a little baby “for us and for our salvation” revealing to us the inner life of God – a life of love beyond all our imagining and we are all invited to participate in this life – a life so totally other from our small, selfish, self-absorbed world - the life which is the light of humankind (cf Jn1:4).  “To all who did accept him he gave power to become children of God” (Jn 1:12)

Pope Benedict reminds us that faith in Jesus is our doorway into this life of communion with God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit and “to enter through this door is to set out on a journey which lasts for a lifetime.”  Each celebration of Christmas is an invitation to expose our hearts ever more fully to the light of God’s love and allow ourselves to be shaped by His transforming grace. (cf Pope Benedict XVI: Porta Fidei).  Our celebration of Christmas ought to be a foretaste of the joy which will be ours when we shall see the Lord face to face, when it will never be night again because the Lord God will be shining on us and we shall live through love in His Presence in endless Day.

Until that day it is our faith which sustains us - faith in God’s Word which assures us that darkness c annot overpower this light (Jn 1:5) which has broken into our world because this light is the fire of love and “Love is a blazing fire, fiercer than any flame which cannot be quenched by any flood.” (cf S of S 8:6,7).

We ask Mary our mother, who was always firm in faith, to intercede for us during this Year of Faith that we may be a people of this light, faithful to her Son that we may bring His life to a waiting world.