Merry Christmas!
This Christmas, let us look beyond the sentimentality and recognize the audacious, revolutionary core of the Nativity story: God’s ultimate choice to begin salvation among the poor, the vulnerable, and the marginalized.
The Christmas story is not a quiet fable; it is a declaration of God’s profound solidarity with the suffering and a witness to human resistance against oppressive power. The Incarnation, the very coming of Christ, is fundamentally a call to action.
We are reminded that the world is changed not by passive waiting, but by those who, like Mary in her Magnificat, choose to “magnify the Lord” by living lives committed to justice and compassion.
Ultimately, Christmas affirms that the divine ultimate is not a distant, unreachable entity, but is instead profoundly involved in the profane, the mundane, and the human reality of our world.
This season calls us to embrace a love that is more than just romantic or familial. It is an expansive, difficult, and world-changing love that actively seeks the dignity of every single neighbor. That radical love—that commitment to dignity and justice—is the true reason for our celebration today.
Shalom, Paul