Well, I dusted off this post from 2013 and recycled it, for it’s worth repeating this year.

Someone gave me a “Christmas card” that showed the billions of stars in the Milky Way galaxy. Pointing to one tiny dot was an arrow labelled, “You are here.” Pondering this picture makes me dizzy! It emphasizes the puniness of our planet in the context of the immensity of the universe. How astounding that God who designed the unfathomable things in space would care for us so much that he would give us a thought–much less become part of our world!

Yet this is what we celebrate at Christmas: God, who is love, enters earth as a baby in order that we might live with him forever.

What’s more, we celebrate that Christ will come again to take us all to our eternal home, where it will be Christmas every day. And we also celebrate that in this in between time, Christ comes to us over and over: in the Eucharist and in one another. You would think that considering what a mess we people of earth often make of our lives that God would have washed his hands of us. But his love is infinite and apparently foolish and blind! This hound of heaven relentless pursues us and comes and comes.

So with hearts full of gratitude and love, let us sing with the angels, “Glory to God in the highest!” Let’s heed Pope Francis’s warning and make sure that when Jesus comes to us, we do not have a “Do not disturb” sign over our hearts!

May you have a Merry Christmas and take time to savor the wonder of the first Christmas. And may God bless your new year with peace, joy, and good health as he comes to you in mystery day by day.

Here is a haunting version of the song “Mary, Did You Know?”: