I can’t believe it – it’s Christmas Eve!
It seems every year to sneak up on me. This year, however, I think I’ve been waiting for it for ever. There is something about the anticipation of the birth of Christ that makes one feel like everything could be righted again. We wait all year for Jesus to be born again in a stable in Bethlehem so life can be renewed.
But isn’t He already here? Hasn’t He walked through this terrible year along side of us? In the anxiety, in the fear, in the uncertainty- He was there. Wasn’t He? And tomorrow we celebrate the memory of the birth that saved us and continues to save us.
Last year, I shared this poem on Christmas Day, but it seems even more relevant this year. A beautiful reminder of God with us. Let it be our prayer today:
Now God says to us
What He has already said to the earth as a whole
Through His grace-filled birth:
I am there. I am with you.
I am your life. I am your time.
I am the gloom of your daily routine.
Why will you not hear it?
I weep your tears – pour yours out to me.
I am your joy.
Do not be afraid to be happy; ever since I wept, joy is the standard of living
That is really more suitable than the anxiety and grief of those who have no hope.
I am the blind alley of all your paths,
For when you no longer know how to go any farther,
Then you have reached me,
Though you are not aware of it.
I am in your anxiety, for I have shared it.
I am in the prison of your finiteness,
For my love has made me your prisoner.
I am in your death,
For today I began to die with you,
because I was born,
And I have not let myself be spared any real part of this experience.
I am present in your needs;
I have suffered them and they are now transformed.
I am there.
I no longer go away from this world.
Even if you do not see me now, I am there.
My love is unconquerable.
I am there.
It is Christmas.
Light the Candles! They have more right to exist then all the darkness.
It is Christmas.
Christmas that lasts forever.
– Karl Rahner, S.J., “The Eternal Year”
