A Christmas message from our Provincial Director Fr. Jeffrey Kirch, C.PP.S.
Christmas, its images and celebrations, all have the newborn Jesus at the center. The light of the world radiates out from a tiny infant. But there are many humans in the account of Jesus’ birth: his parents on Earth, of course, and all those who came to worship him in his first hours and days of life with us.
I have often wondered about the shepherds’ reaction. How could these people, whose work took them far from the marketplace, far from any crowds, have the wherewithal to grasp and relay what they had just seen? If we in the modern world, with all its lights and technological wonders, saw the scene unfold on Christmas morning, our heads would explode.
Yet as Mary reflected on the birth of Jesus and its surrounding miracles in her heart, the shepherds “returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, just as it had been told to them” (Luke 2:20). Their eyes and ears were open to the miracle.
May we all be open to the miracle, today and all days, that God loved us so much he sent his Son to Earth to walk among us. Jesus is with us still, providing all the light and love we will ever need, with plenty left over to share with whatever shepherds or kings or new little families we encounter.