Christmas 2018

May the season of hope and regeneration does not end on December 25th. Indeed, may this be only a beginning.....

Life is dangerous, brutal and bitter. It takes every bit of energy to scrape a living out of the harsh world in which human beings live. For most people, there is only darkness and despair if ever they pause for a moment from the ceaseless rat race and stare out at the distance stars.

“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but

their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened...They ex- changed the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things ra- ther than the Creator—who is forever praised ... They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossipers, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arro- gant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.

What Saint Paul describes in this letter to the Romans is not too far from reality on the global scale. Although we may not feel the weight of life on our shoulders as much but it still is crushing millions and may be billions of others. Death lurks around every turn and beyond death the bleak unknown. This is the nightmare called existence in the world.

Into this horrific dream that we have created for ourselves drops a shred of light, a splash of color. It seems out of place in the muck and mire; delicate and ephemeral, and yet succulent and nourish- ing. Eyes lift from the filthy morass. Hope springs in the weary, famished heart that perhaps there is in- deed more to life than the hamster wheel. For one brief exhilarating moment the soul is conscious of some- thing bigger than itself and it is roused to begin the search for eternity. This is the reality of the Incarna- tion. Christ our God has entered as a babe in the squalor of daily human existence. He comes to save us from ourselves and the mess that we have made of the world God has given us.

This season of hope and regeneration does not end on December 25th. Indeed, this is only the begin- ning..... Today He was born and He entered in to the manger of our hearts. He brought light and joy and He made us whole. Keep the New Born Babe in your heart and grow in His presence in to the perfect hu- man being that He has intended for us. By receiving the light and keeping it in our lives we can shine it in to the lives of others.

One candle at a time we can dissolve the darkness. It starts here and now it starts with me and you. We are shaping the future of the world in the mangers of our homes. Start from yourself, start from your children, receive the light, keep it and give it to your loved ones and the world will be showered in light for you and for those who surround you.