The Nativity of the Lord (Christmas)

Today's Mass Readings

We all want to be home for Christmas and will travel great distances to get there. We monks are happy to be home for Christmas, even though our home is not where our natural family lives but our monastic family. We decorate it similarly, and we have our own set of rituals and customs around Christmas.

Mary and Joseph weren’t home on the first Christmas. They had traveled from Nazareth to submit to a national census and ended up in a humble stable in distant Bethlehem when Jesus was born.

Of course, home is not a building or a place; it is people: the people we love and want to be with. The focus of Christmas is family, which is what “home” represents. The family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph are the main characters in the first Christmas, and our family is the one with whom we want to celebrate Christmas the most.

What we celebrate at Christmas is that God made his home with us here on earth. He became part of a human family, and by that great act of humility, he showed us the great dignity of our humanity and our family.

The invitation Christmas offers us as we gather with our family or miss them because we can’t be with them is to deepen our love for the family God placed us in and the human family God loved so much that he sent his only Son to redeem it.

Families are not automatically nurturing and loving. It takes kindness, patience, thoughtfulness, and forgiveness to preserve the unity and love of a family. Through his Son, Jesus, God showed his kindness, patience, forgiveness, and love toward our whole human family. What gift of love am I going to give my family this Christmas? How will my gift resemble God’s gift of his Son: not flashy but humble, not expecting anything in return, but from the heart?

On behalf of our family of monks at Conception, I assure you of our love and promise you our prayer that God’s blessings will come down upon you and your family this Christmas and throughout the coming year.

Reflection by Abbot Benedict Neenan, OSB