2018 - Merry Christmas!

We are all familiar with the Christmas Gospel about the birth of Jesus. There was no room for Mary and Joseph at the inn and so Jesus was born in a stable in Bethlehem.

There was no room at the inn, but God came anyway. The fact that there was no room at the inn did not stop God from being born into this world. When there seems like there is no room at the inn of our lives, God is being born anyway. God is being born unexplainably in our hearts moment by moment, breath by breath.
   
I want to share a beautiful story that the author James Finley tells. He recalls that one of his earliest memories is that his mother would take him to Mass on Sundays. One time when he three years old it was around Christmas. The church was very crowded and a little baby started to cry somewhere in the church and he whispered in his mom’s ear, "Is that the baby Jesus crying?" And she whispered in his ear, "Yes, it is." And he believed her.  

And today more than 70 years later he says that he still believes her. Not in the naive way that a small child would believe it, but in this way --- knowing that in Jesus, it is revealed to us that every child is worth all that God is worth. Every child is worth all that God is worth.  

Under all the many complexities of life, there is in our hearts this childlike purity. It’s really the God-given Godly nature of who we simply are because God loves us.   

Christmas then is us awakening to God being born in our hearts, moment by moment, breath by breath in the simplicity of our hearts, in the depths of our lives, in the complexities of whatever the day might bring, awakening to the truth that every person is worth all that God is worth. Every person is worth all that God is worth.

Merry Christmas.