In one of the early writings of the Desert Masters, the following tribute was recorded: "Abba Poemen said about Abbot Fior, that every single day he made a fresh beginning."

The faith for fresh beginnings is clearly one of the lessons of Christmas.

In Isaiah, it is God who makes the new beginning with a people for whom it was now obvious, failure was to be commonplace. By beginning again with a faithless people, God enables them go begin again as well.

Like Mary, we must go to the Bethlehem of our own lives, to those places where our own family rejects us, ignores us, irritates us or needs us. We must begin again to be kind and understanding and supportive of one another. We must go wherever we are needed, not simply to the neighbors who are near to us, known to us and like us.

Like the shepherds, we must have the sense to change our lives, and "in haste," in order to respond to the vagaries of the world around us....