It is Christmas, once again.

I earnestly pray that you have a wonderful Christmas and get what you need this year: time with family and friends, good food, music, hope, peace, beauty, joy, safety, rest, or comfort in these holy days.

Christmas has a lot of nostalgia and tradition that surrounds it. This can be either good or bad, helpful or unhelpful.

The unhelpful is when our nostalgia sanitizes the difficult realities of the world and of those around us and causes us to look away, or when our traditions become prisons, heavy loads that weigh us and those around us down.

However, they are at their best when they draw us to the wonder of the Incarnation—that God has taken on flesh to dwell among us—and point us to Jesus, Emmanuel—God who has chosen to be with us out of love. They are at their best when they help us to be more charitable, more forgiving, more merciful, more joyous, more justice-oriented, and more peaceful. This is the true Spirit of Christmas.

I pray that the great and wondrous mystery of Christmas will touch your hearts and lives this Christmas season and beyond.

Let the promise that Charles Dickens put into the mouth of Ebenezer Scrooge become our promise and prayer, “I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.”

Thanks be to God and Merry Christmas!

CG+