Christmas 2007 is about a Child who healed the sick, fed the hungry, showed compassion, taught that one should lay down his life for friends --- and did so. He also gave answers to basic questions that confront ordinary mortals like us: pain, suffering, loss and death.”
“The Bethlehem story, in Luke’s Gospel, gives us an ‘array of luminous images’. “They Shall Call Him Emmanuel”.( We see ). “The night sky alight with bright angels, simple shepherds startled from sleep, magi…It is a happening, above all, for the deepest heart.”
“Christmas is not, first of all, a revelation for the intelligence….It is looking at a Son who was born for us, who would die for us, because we mattered to him, because we are infinitely cherished, infinitely loved…At the crib, the first task is to look, and looking to adore. Venite adoremus, the old Latin carol says. Come let us adore him”.
“The hopes and fears of all the years / Are met in thee tonight,” the 1861 (?) carol says of the little town of Bethlehem. Indeed, the unique grace of Christmas is that both sinners and saints can say, together with kings and shepherds: “Let us go to Bethlehem and see what the Lord has made known to us.”
A Blessed Christmas and a Prosperous New Year 2007!
Eliseo “Jun” Mercado, OMI
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