premium website buildersDear Parishioners,
May the Blessings of Christmas Love, Joy, Peace, and Hope be with you all! Some may ask, “Where is this Christmas spirit of Joy to be found?” For many, it is found in the Christmas story of the Birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. It’s a story that resonates and penetrates the heart of human nature. It’s a story that children and adults never tire of hearing. Yet, this Christmas story has been told so often for so long that it’s easy even for us Christians to forget how revolutionary the birth of Jesus is. The idea that God would become human and dwell among us in such humble circumstances, being born in a stable and laid in a manger is a revolutionary idea! This is the same God who created the universe, the solar systems, the stars, the planets, and every living creature in Heaven and on Earth. This is the same God who is self-sufficient and has no need of us and knows that we would cease existing without him and yet loves us so much that he wants to form an intimate relationship with us. This Christmas story is truly mindboggling and at the same time revolutionary.
As the Shepherds were invited by the angel of God to set out to see the Child Jesus lying in a manger, we too are invited to contemplate this Christmas story of an all-powerful God who humbled himself, taking on the form of an infant child, making himself small for us. This is how he reigns. God does not come with power and outward splendor. God comes as a baby — defenseless and in need of our help. God does not want to overwhelm us with his strength. God takes away our fear of his greatness. God asks for our love: so he makes himself a child. God wants nothing from us other than our love, through which we spontaneously learn to enter into his feelings, his thoughts, and his will — we learn to live with him and to practice with him that humility of renunciation that belongs to the very essence of love. God made himself small so that we could understand him, welcome him, and love him.
This is a God who truly touches the essence of our human nature which resonates with all cultures throughout the world. May the true Joy of the newborn Christ come alive within all of us and may we spread that Joy contagiously to all we meet throughout the Christmas Season.
Along with Fr. Robain, Fr. Michael, and the Pastoral Staff of St. Nicholas & St. William Parish, we want to wish you a blessed and Merry Christmas.
Christmas blessings,
Fr. John Poncini
Pastor