Christmas Day

Merry Christmas dear friends! An angel of the Lord, bathed in light, illumines the night and brings glad tidings to the shepherds: “I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.” (Lk 2:10). God has become one of us to make us like Himself and so bring us together to the embrace of the Father.

Then the passage continues: “This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” (Lk 2:12). The shepherds are contemplating a banquet scene, an image of God feeding humanity on a manger. God is becoming food in Bethlehem (which means “the house of bread”). When have you felt Him feeding you with his tender love?

The garden of paradise that was closed when our parents grasped the prohibited food to acquire divinity now is reopened when God descends as gratuitous food for the hungry exiled children. He descends to our “animal-like” condition because the manger is a place to feed animals, and sin has sadly made us lose reason and devour each other so many times.

This Christmas let’s come as hungry children to the manger. Let’s go in haste like the shepherds because this light had bathed us. Let’s go to be fed by the tender love of His Son, perhaps we can become more like Him in everything. Perhaps we can end up feeding one another with our time, attention and care. I want to become free food from Heaven for my fellow brothers and sisters so they can also pass permanently from the state of exiled children into the warm house of the Father.

Blessed Christmas season!

Fr. Remi Morales, Pastor