The true gifts of Christmas

With all my heart I greet you this Blessed Christmas of 2009. All during Advent, we have heard the promise, “He is coming; He will not delay.” Sunday after Sunday we have lifted up our hearts knowing that soon He would be born again to us on this Christmas Day. “Born again” because what He did once at a specific time in history, He does time and time again spiritually in all the hearts that long for him, in all the families who search for him, in all the parishes of our diocese who “prepare the way” for Him.

Faith, family and friends come together at this time of year and give us the opportunity to experience God’s many blessings in ways that make this the season of joy and happiness, of harmony and peace. In so doing we do not overlook the many difficult challenges we personally and in our communities and world must face. War continues to be waged against an intractable enemy that time and again uses violence against the innocent as a weapon of choice. The specter of poverty is present in our land as well as many nations of our world, especially where there is famine and forced migration. In our own communities here on Long Island there are many persons and families who need our help today as perhaps never before in the living memory of most of us.

This season of joy and peace is not one in which we ignore these and other realities. Rather we show that we understand the true gift of Christmas by seeking to reach out to others and bring life and hope into lives that have known too much suffering, too little hope and not enough resources, material and spiritual, to find the strength to go forward on their own. And the message of Christmas is that they should not have to go it alone. The message of Christmas is that we all, without exception, become one through the One Who was born of Mary that first Christmas. The message of Christmas tells us that, because we all share in the life of Christ, in the light that bursts forth into the world from a Bethlehem stable, we in turn gladly receive His life, accept His life, share it, and pass it on.

Just as there is no one who is left out of Christ’s birth, so there is no one of us who has nothing to give back to Him in thanksgiving. It may not be much by the world’s standards of ‘more and more’ and ‘costlier and costlier.’ Instead it is something infinitely better. It is the gift we make of ourselves to the Lord and the gifts of joy and hope, of justice and peace that we share with all our brothers and sisters, especially those in most need. These are the true gifts of Christmas.

This Christmas Day He comes to us because He desires to do so. He wants us, He thirsts for us. Let His word illumine our lives and let Mary’s offer of her Son to us all change our hearts. He who took from Mary our nature and not our fault is the One Who offers us His love through that very human nature we share. So, my dear friends, embrace one another as He has embraced you and honor one another as He has honored you and care for one another as He has cared for you for today we are all brothers and sisters in Christ, and all at peace because God sent His Son born of a woman that we might have life and life to the full.

A joyous and blessed Christmas to all.