Many of the readings at today's Masses employ the image of light shining through the darkness to convey the importance of what this feast day is all about.

The people filing into your church this season are pilgrims along the way. Some haven't crossed your threshold in a long time--for months, maybe even years. Give them a prodigal welcome.

For everything there is a season, an ancient Hebrew sage once told us. The season of Christmas, which lasts for eight days, is surely a time for love.

Christmas celebrates the revelation of God in an unusual locale: a manger in an out-of-the-way town. When it comes to bringing the church to unexpected areas, you have to hand it to the modern-day German Christians.

In fifth grade our teacher let us have a Christmas party, complete with a grab bag gift exchange. That morning I spied a big package--the size and shape of a fun board game--wrapped in shiny paper and with a big glitzy bow on it. I knew I had to have it.

To say the "Word became flesh" is to say that human beings in all their earthiness are holy creatures--true children of God made in the very image of God. Consequently the work of human hands is equally graced. 

Why is it that Christmas carols, the same ones we sing year after year, mean so much to us?

On this day of celebration of the coming of God's Son, we pray for the grace to welcome him and follow him.

In celebrating Christ's birth, the church embraces all these forms of salvation: healing, forgiveness, real deliverance from distress, and entering into divine life, both now and to come.

Today is the nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to the flesh. --Proclamation of the Birth of Christ