Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! May the Lord grant you abundant peace as we experience the joy of Christmas and the promise of a new year. At this point most of us are still on vacation and preparing to start a new semester within in the next few weeks. I pray this break has been restful, productive and fun because I know that if you are like me, you really needed the break!
The Lord gave me a great gift over this break – quality time to be with Him in prayer. It has been such a grace that has filled me and given me great peace during the Christmas season. I am inspired by the Pope’s quote above and really have taken it to heart to think whether or not I let "Jesus in the manger" make a difference in my life. What does He mean to me? What does He mean to you? What does He mean to the world?
You know why I am so fired up this Christmas season and filled with great peace and joy? Because God keeps his promises. Throughout the whole Old Testament, the Messiah was promised to save the chose people. Prophet after prophet spoke of the Savior and Messiah that would come to make all thins new, to make things better, and to show us the way. And on a cold night in Bethlehem the promise was fulfilled. God became a man. Jesus came as a child, to save us, to love us, and show us the way home. He kept His promise.
My friends how much we need to believe in the promise of Jesus! How much we need to believe, like the Pope said, that he can change evil into good and convert the hearts of all people to peace and love. We don’t need to look around too much to see that most people are living as if there is no promise. Most of us probably even live sometimes as if we haven’t been promised something eternal, something real, or something that can change our very lives. We go day to day thinking that we have to solve all our problems on our own. We try and avoid pain and suffering as if it is something we can control. We make decisions for the short term that do not take into consideration the context of the life God wants us to live, and we begin to doubt that this world is really good - made for something more. We forget that there is a promise that has been given to us, beginning in a manger, sealed with blood on the cross, and revealed with the resurrection. How much we need to believe in the promise of Jesus!
Be inspired by what God has done. Be inspired that he chose to be born as a poor boy in a manger. Be inspired that he chose to be born of a woman. How beautiful Mary really is! Be inspired that he chose Joseph as his foster father to take care of Him and Mary. Be inspired that He did not come to be powerful but to be lowly. Take some time to think about the story and mystery of what truly happened. Let us not allow our hearts be numb to the greatest story every told. Let us not allow the despair of our present time dampen or suffocate the gift that has been given to us in Jesus.
If we understand the promise that has been given to us we will be inspired and life will be different. There will be joy and peace that is real, that will change us, and that will last.
