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The Shepherd's Keeping Watch Over Their Flocks in Bethlehem
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Greetings! The excitement of the holidays...the music, so familiar, the colorful trees, hints of snow and sounds of bells. It is already here and moving toward the highlighted day.. Christmas. Almost magical, but better than magic, even better than Santa Clause. It is a day of celebration of a love that will never fail us. It is a day of reality and deep, very deep meaning. For more than two thousand years, men and women, boys and girls, the rich and the poor, the worst of sinners and the most innocent of children look to the crib with expectancy as the child is laid in the manger. Below are a few reflections that you might want to read over during the week to keep your eyes on the crib as you move closer to our day of celebration, remembering that it is all about love! My husband Bob and I and our family want to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a year that is brimming over with inspirations that come from knowing the babe, the man, the holy one, this Christmas. Sharon |
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This morning at Church I held our little Liam again. He gazed into my eyes and held them with his large blue eyes and his smile that captured my heart.
It is the way that Jesus captures our hearts when we glance his way, and stay awhile. His love is that big and true and even better than Liam's. Jesus' love is divine.
It is perfect love, the kind of love that won't be disallusioned with us when he sees our imperfections, our inability to love well, and the hoarde of sins that come along with us. "Zacheus, come down fromt he tree...I want to dine at your house today."
This love, while seeing our true imperfect nature, holds out hope that we can gather strength to love more like his when we take him into our hearts, turn away from all that which has already failed us, and leap into the next phase of our life, walking down the narrow path with love itself, with Jesus... who was born in a manger, no crib for a bed.
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TODAY
As a storm that killed more than 650 in the southern Philippines raged outside the store where she works,
Amor Limbago worriedly called home to check on her parents, but their cellphones just kept ringing and later went dead.Limbago, 21, rushed home as soon as the flash floods receded and confirmed her worst fear: Her parents and seven other relatives were gone, swept away from their hut by the river. They had eagerly planned a small Christmas dinner in that hut just days earlier.
Christmas Celebrations can fail us:
But Jesus, will never fail us.
Edmund Rubio, a 44-year-old engineer, said he, his wife and two children scrambled to the second floor of their house in Iligan city as floodwaters engulfed the first floor, destroying his TV set and other appliances and washing away his car and motorcycle. Amid the panic, he heard a loud pounding on his door (as Mary and Joseph pounded on the door of the inn) as neighbors living in nearby one-story houses pleaded with him to allow them up to his second floor. He said he brought 30 neighbors to the safety of his house, which later shook when a huge floating log slammed into it.
"It's the most important thing, that all of us will still be together this Christmas," Rubio told the AP.
May we answer our neighbors knocks this Christmas and maybe even better, may we go out and look for them.
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