Merry Christmas!!! Now we can celebrate His birth. When the rest of society is tired of Christmas, now is when we should be excited for Christmas!!!! Why, because we have waited until Christmas to celebrate His birth, that is why. This is why we don’t want to celebrate it too early. CHRISTMAS is here. And we celebrate Christmas until the Baptism of the Lord, which is January 11 this year. Sing those Christmas songs, extend greetings with “Merry Christmas,” watch those Christmas movies, and do whatever are your family traditions. It is Christmas! Jesus, our savior is born, His birth is what we are celebrating. It is He who is our focus, we are to turn to Him and focus on Him.
So, for many, Advent has been a time to prepare ourselves spiritually for the coming of the Lord. Why stop doing some of the spiritual practices that we began in Advent. For some, maybe we started praying the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary. Well, it would be good to continue that, as now we can celebrate Jesus’ birth and His presentation at the temple. What gifts these are. Now would be a good time to read the story of Jesus’ birth. But just because it is Christmas, we should not give up on prayer, for with prayer we can keep ourselves stuck to God like glue.
This week we celebrate Mary, the Mother of God. It is a Holy Day to honor the mother of Jesus. People ask sometimes, why we honor her so much? Well, we are doing just what Jesus, a good son, would do. That is, we are following the fourth commandment which is to honor and obey our parents. Do we think that just because Jesus is in Heaven that He would not honor His mother? If Jesus didn’t honor His mother, He would be using her and to use someone is not love. Therefore, because Jesus loves and honors His mother we should do what He does. That is why, as Catholics, we honor and respect our Heavenly mother, Mary, who is the Mother of God.
Fr. Thomas P. Galarneault