December 21, 2025
Christmas is here. The candles are lit, the manger is set, and the familiar carols return to us like old friends. Silent Night… O Come All Ye Faithful... — songs that remind us why we gather this week.
Every Christmas, I think back to when I was a boy. My mother would sit quietly in the living room late on Christmas Eve, long after the rest of us had gone to bed. I once asked her why she stayed up. She said, “I want to be awake when the Lord comes.” She didn’t mean the clock striking midnight — she meant her heart.
Christmas has a way of waking up something inside us — wonder, gratitude, hope. But it can also bring stress, worries, and long to-do lists. We try to make everything perfect: the gifts, the dinner, the house. And whenever we try to be the main character, we end up tired and disappointed.
But we are not the main character.
Christ is.
This year, as we celebrate Christmas, we also bring to a close the Jubilee Year, which invited the whole Church to be “Pilgrims of Hope.” Thousands of pilgrims have walked through holy doors around the world — and here at our Shrine — looking for mercy, healing, and a fresh start. Hope has been the theme from the first day of the Jubilee to the last.
And isn’t that what Christmas is? God breaking into our world with HOPE — hope wrapped in swaddling clothes, hope laid in a manger, hope that has a name: Jesus.
The manger teaches us that God enters quietly, gently, and often where we least expect Him. He doesn’t ask us for perfection — just room. Room in our hearts, room in our homes, room in our busyness.
Pope Benedict wrote, “Each of us is the result of a thought of God... each of us is necessary.” Christmas tells us the same thing. God chose to enter our world because He loves us — not because we have everything together, but because we don’t.
So as this Jubilee Year of Hope comes to an end, and as Christmas dawns once again, may we let Jesus be the center. Let Him be born in the ordinary moments — a kind word, a quiet prayer, a simple act of love.
May the Christ Child bless you and your families with peace, hope, and joy. And may our Blessed Mother Mary teach us, once again, how to make room for Him.
I remember you at Mass.
Hope does not disappoint.
