The holidays are a time for homecomings, friendships renewed and family.  The great diaspora returns to hearth and heart over a season devoted to relationships. The celebration of the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ is intimately part of these events.  We are reminded that Christ appears in each face known and unknown and that we ourselves are bearing Christ to others.

Christmas Eve services with my father were always very special. I especially enjoyed serving as his acolyte and server at the midnight mass.  After singing Silent Night, un-vesting and locking up, we would leave the church with our candles early on Christmas morn and see if we could manage to take the Christ Candle, lit, from the church down the street to our home.  It was a beautiful thing to watch the little taper flicker in the dark night that surrounded it - putting off warmth and light.  That image remains with me today and gives an iconic picture to the words of John's Gospel: "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it." (John 1.5)

It is the same image of Christ that we both bear and receive in our family and circles of friends this season of Christmas.  As the warmth and light of Christ bathes our homes and our hearts, lighting the darkness all around, I hope you will pause and remember those who watch, work and weep.  Be mindful as we bake and cook and dine that there are those who go without.  And to each may we share what we so bountifully have received. May we give as we have been given.  May we bless as we have been blessed. May we love as we have been loved.  May Christ's light so brighten our lives that the world is renewed and transformed by its burning in our hearts and the its warmth in our human touch.

Merry Christmas.