Appeared in The Catholic Virginian December 25, 2000

Christmas
 

Two thousand years ago, our world witnessed the greatest event of all of history, namely the birth of the Christ-child, Jesus, Son of God and Son of Man. God who is eternal love and self-gift sent his only begotten Son to be our Savior and our Redeemer. The angel Gabriel proclaimed Jesus to be Emmanuel, God with us. As Savior, he is God for us and as Redeemer, he is God within us. A bright star broke the darkness of a waiting world. In this person of Jesus, heaven is united with our earth and earth with heaven. A people who existed without hope and without a sense of future and immortality is embraced by their God who, in Christ, will not forsake them. The first messengers of his coming were the heavenly hosts who declared to the poorest of the poor, the shepherds, "Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For today, in the City of David, a Savior has been born for you who is Messiah and Lord."

For 2000 years the story of the birth of Jesus is told and retold. It is a story of wonderment and mystery, the mystery of the Incarnation, God becoming one of us, taking on our flesh, truly God and truly human. The story is all too familiar to us, recited over and over in words and song. Christmas carols ring out words of faith and of love. The question ever before us in this the year 2000, will the coming of the Christ-child make a difference in our lives?

During this whole year, we have prepared ourselves for this major event, the culmination of all our hopes and aspirations. For us, the year 2000 has been a holy year, a year of preparation, anticipation and expectancy. Our year has been graced filled as we have put into action in our lives the words from the banners in our parish communities, "Open Wide the Doors to Christ" - this Christ who is "yesterday, today and forever." Yes, in the words of Pope John Paul II, this year 2000 has truly been "a springtime of hope."

First and foremost we opened the doors of our own hearts to Christ who is ever in our midst. We experienced this Christ coming to us in the sacramental and liturgical year of the Church. We experienced this Christ coming to us through the people of our faith communities who share their lives with each other, who celebrate their faith, who reach out to one another in a spirit of hospitality and welcome. "Opening wide the doors to Christ" has gone beyond the doors of our churches. We have allowed this Christ to come to us in the faces of the poor and unwanted, in the faces of refugees from different countries, different cultures, different races. Like the shepherds and the Magi, we have found Christ by going out to the imprisoned and those on death row. Our journey of searching involved our ecumenical and interfaith partners who share a common vision of the sacredness of all of life.

Like a beautiful tapestry of faith filled people, we came together as many parish families to celebrate the unity of our faith in Christ and in one another at our diocesan-wide convocation last May 19 at the University of Richmond. At that gathering we renewed ourselves in spirit, reconciled our differences and recommitted to our vocation which, like that of Mary, is to make Christ visible in our world today. This fall, as we observed Jubilee 2000, we recognized jubilantly 150 people, one from each parish, who exemplified or modeled for us the true meaning of lay ministry or lay discipleship. "Open Wide the Doors to Christ" did not remain just a slogan or an ideal but a lived reality of the thousands of committed people of our diocese.

Jubilee 2000 has been a joy-filled journey for us, a journey which now takes us back 2000 years ago to a stable in Bethlehem to find an infant lying in a manger. This Christmas is but another opportunity and challenge to pledge our lives completely to this child who wants to be the center of our lives. We notice at the crib that there is room for everyone because Jesus came for the salvation of all of humanity, not just for a select few or for a particular group. If we reach out to embrace the Christ-child then we are willing to embrace all for whom he came. Yes, the message of Christmas is so disarmingly simple: "Look! God is here, God has not forgotten or abandoned us - God is here present to dispel the many forms of darkness that invade our lives and weaken our vision and our love." The words of the angel give us reason to hope once again, reason to recommit, reason to renew our resolve: "Do not be afraid, behold I bring you good news." That good news comes in the form of a person, this Jesus who once again we reach out to embrace.

I like to say that the message of Christmas is always the same, a message of God's love and self-gift to us. Ours is no longer a distant God but one who wants to become incarnate in each of us. What is different this year is that we are different from last year. We are certainly one year older. Circumstances in our life have brought us joys as well as sorrow. For many, there is the loss of a loved one, a pain of separation, the pain of disappointment and disillusion, and yet, at Christmas 2000, a new birth of our Savior brings to us new life and new hope.

Let us journey together into the future as we celebrate this first Christmas of the New Millennium. The Lord himself came to us as a pilgrim not just to visit us, but to unite us with him in his journey through time into eternity.

May you have a blessed, joyful and grace-filled Christmas in the year of Our Lord, 2000.
 
 

+ Walter F. Sullivan
Bishop of Richmond