For obvious logistical reasons, it’s not always possible to have separate bulletins for Sundays and Holy days that fall so close together, and therefore sometimes it is necessary to combine columns. Since this column serves as both the 4 ^th Sunday of Advent as well as the Christmas column, I’ll take care of the last Sunday of Advent first. Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight His paths, the Savior comes to us soon, open your hearts to meet Him. Now that that’s out of the way…

Merry Christmas! Although much of the practice of celebrating Christmas has been coopted by a parasitic industry of commercialism, Christmas remains one of the two principal feasts of the Catholic Faith, because without these two feasts,
our beliefs become meaningless. St. Paul himself once said, “If Christ was not raised, your Faith is in vain.” Without Easter, our creation, our birth, our life, would all be no gain. All of salvation history is focused in on the Cross of Christ
Our Savior. The feast we celebrate today in Christmas is the culmination of the Father’s plan to introduce His Son into the world so that He could offer Himself, in the Holy Spirit, as a sacrifice for our sins.
 
God the Father prepared the Blessed Mother as a bridge between Heaven and earth, and Jesus Christ willingly bound Himself to our fallen human nature in order to be our redemption. He did this knowing full well that the Cross awaited Him; a Cross that was not His to bear. Christmas marks the beginning of the end of sin and death’s reign over mankind. Everything that we do as Catholics is built upon our understanding of Jesus Christ’s coming among us, His death for us, andHis eventual return.

As you celebrate Christmas with your families and take part in all the beautiful traditions that have been handed down through the years, remember all this. Remember that all of that is built on a recognition of the gift that Jesus Christ has given us by uniting Himself to our struggles and our weakness. My Christmas plans never really change. I’ve spent every Christmas Eve of my life in the same house with my Dad’s side of the family. Every year on Christmas day I have dinner with my Mom’s side, and we always have more or less the same thing. These moments spent with my mom in the kitchen and my entire family gathered together are my favorite times each year. Much like our Faith, none of it makes sense without the generosity of Our Lord, poured out in His Nativity and eventually on His Cross. Take a moment with your loved ones to take stock of that. As you open gifts, or as you take your first bite of beef tenderloin and mushroom risotto (the only acceptable
Christmas dinner, in my book), remember that Jesus Christ did all of this for you. He did this so you and all His other beloved brothers and sisters could be with Him forever.
 
May God bless you all, and know of my prayers for you in this beautiful Christmas season.
 
Fr. McC