A Christmas message
Dear Friends,
As we celebrate this holy season of grace may the Incarnate Lord make His dwelling in you and fill you with peace.
“And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” Have we heard these words so many times that they fail to take our breath away? A danger of being a person of faith, a believer, is that we take it so much for granted. Familiarity, if it doesn't exactly breed contempt, it often breeds boredom. It is so easy to forget what this feast is really all about.
The endless repititon of Christmas carols played on every radio station and blasted from every public address system from October to December, the plastic Christmas tree, the cheap creche, the crass commercialism, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, the mind numbing silliness of it all. No wonder its real meaning gets lost.
Behind all of this; beneath it all; is the reality of God's passionate, raw, hard love for us. It is God's fidelity to His commitment not to leave us abandon, not to leave us in the darkness of political, personal, or social tyrannies. The message is summed up in the announcement of the archangel Gabriel to Mary at the Annunciation, “You shall call His name Jesus and He shall be known as Emmanuel, which translates God with us.” Yes, God with us, or as St. John puts it, “et Verbum caro factum est, et habitavit in nobis”: “ And the Word was made flesh, and made his dwelling among us.”
Why? Why does God want to dwell among us, with us, in us? Because, simply put, the object of all love is union: to be with the beloved. So whatever it is, God has a thing for us, a passion. The real Christmas story, then, is not that of a passive, seductive Baby Jesus but rather of an active, desiring God. Christmas is about God's driving desire to be part of the human condition. God loves us that much. May this God shower you with His love today and througout the coming New Year.
With our prayers and best wishes to you and your loved ones.
Fr. Joseph Gabriel Cusimano, O.S.B.
Prior
