Merry Christmas to all!

Merry Christmas to all!

We are happy to share with you an excerpt from our Chaplain's homily on this Christmas Day!

      ...When God comes to visit this earth, He does not do so with the power of an army or by terrifying the world as men think; He does not bring war and desolation with Him. He does not have the economic or political power of a great man of this world. God comes to visit us, and behold: He is a poor and exiled newborn baby. He has no means of defending himself: he cannot even speak. In everything, he depends on us. He entrusts himself totally to humanity and meets us according to the welcome we give him. In this, the Christian message is unique, absolutely original, confusing, and even scandalous. God as a newborn baby in a poor human family.

           For the first time in the history of humanity, God comes to dwell among men. This discovery of a fragile God both confuses and amazes us. We are free to love him or reject him. We are free to believe that God became a little child, or not to believe it. The God of Jesus Christ offers himself: he does not impose himself.

 No religion has ever had the audacity to proclaim that God became a small child, a fragile and defenseless newborn, poor and exiled. We Christians did not imagine this either: we received it from the Gospels, and this astonishing revelation shapes our faith...

               The Christian faith is an encounter, it is a welcome, it is an offer of love given to our freedom. It is welcoming into our lives this child who comes to us from God. God comes to meet us as a child: And we Christians simply strive to welcome him, to make room for him in our hearts, in our thoughts, in our lives, in our activities, our plans, and our relationships. This is what Christian faith is: welcoming a child with tenderness and letting him grow in us, letting him remain in us. Those who freely accept this encounter observe with amazement how it gradually becomes the strongest, most beautiful, most important, and most peaceful thing in their lives. A friendship is formed that gives them life, and a new hope grows within them, one that nothing can destroy, for it is the hope of the world...

May the celebration of the birth of the Prince of Peace be for all of us

a gateway to new hope for lasting and profound peace

for this country that saw him born

and for our world that he loved so much!

We wish you a joyful Christmas celebration!