Trying to solve Christmas mystery

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

It is Christmas again in a world crippled by war and in desperate need of healing; it is a time when we once again celebrate the Birth of Christ into human history.

Although His first coming cannot be repeated, Christ can be born again and again in our hearts, for it is there and there alone that we can welcome the Prince of Peace, who has chosen to work through us to minister to the suffering, to weep over our cities, to break bread with our hungry, to touch the blind and the crippled, and to extend hands to our neighbors here and abroad.

However, without the firm resolve to make peace a priority in our personal lives and without the true spirit of Christmas in our heart of hearts, our efforts to build a peaceful world will have little effect. For peace cannot abide with its opposite, not in a war-torn world and not in the wars fought in the secret depths of the human heart.

Napoleon Bonaparte, no stranger to conflict and his own personal Waterloo, reflected -- perhaps as a Monday-morning quarterback -- that "the only conquests which are permanent and leave no regrets are our conquests over ourselves."

By striving to expel our own personal hostilities of revenge, retaliation, hatred, indifference, prejudice and greed, we will then be able to fill the empty mangers of our hearts with Christmas peace.

It would also help if we work past the worldly externals that have become so much a part of Christmas, because they tend to clutter our thinking and to distract us from its mystery: namely, that God became one with us so that we could be reconciled with God and one another.

The mystery of Christmas is ours to solve, and the best clues are found in the Gospel. In the words of Sister Macrina Wiederkehr, OSB, the modern spiritual writer, "Come, Lord Jesus, come! 'Gospel up' our lives with your presence and we'll wear lights in our hearts instead of on our trees." Zechariah's prophecy promises that "He will cause the bright dawn of salvation to rise on us and to shine from heaven on all those who live in the dark shadow of death, to guide our steps into the path of peace" (Luke 1:78-79).

My prayers are with you during this Christmas season as you use the lantern of Christ to illumine your own unique path and to bring you that peace which is "beyond understanding."

God bless you and Merry Christmas.

Faithfully yours in Christ,

Howard J. Hubbard

Bishop of Albany

(12/22/05) [[In-content Ad]]