Sunday December 22 and Christmas, 2024
The Birth of Hope
We all love the nativity scene, with the Holy Family, shepherds and kings. I imagine it was a cold night in Bethlehem, but gazing upon the manger, I feel an inexpressible warmth, a tenderness. I feel wonder that the immense God becomes little in this child, Jesus. Pope Francis writes beautifully, “One who embraces the universe needs to be held in another’s arms. The One who created the sun needs to be warmed. Tenderness incarnate needs to be coddled…God’s grandeur appears in littleness.” God desires to come into the little things of our life, including our own littleness: in our experience of feeling weak and frail, incomplete, God is with us. This can be a source of renewed hope for us.
We are pilgrims of hope during this Jubilee year. Pope Benedict XVI wrote in his letter on hope, quoting Saint Paul, that before our encounter with Christ we were without hope and without God in the world (Eph 2:12). Humanities great, true hope which holds firm in spite of all disappointments can only be God. “We need the greater and lesser hopes that keep us going day by day. But these are not enough without the great hope that we cannot attain but comes to us as gift.” The littleness of God in the flesh is a mystery of faith that nonetheless needs to be pointed out to others like the star that shown over Jesus’ birth in the stable at Bethlehem and the angels in splendor who brought the good news to the shepherds. What can I do in order that others may be saved and that for them too the star of hope may rise? Invite others to gaze upon the nativity and join us as pilgrims of hope.
In Christ,
Rev. Robert P. Capone
