December 23, 2020 
It may seem a little different this year without all of the parties and gatherings and churches that can only be partially full, but the wonder and power of Christmas never fades.
It teaches us to flow with what life is offering us at the time and feel the beauty of God’s eternal heartbeat in every moment of our precious lives. Christmas doesn’t need all of the trappings, only the desire to be open to God’s will and be carried. It teaches us that there is always a way through and beyond destruction and that there is hope even in the presence of danger.
Today, our celebration of Christ’s birth beckons us to the new and the wonderful, the yet to be and the surprisingly different. We have been touched this year by the pain of others and it can soften us a bit to the cry of the vulnerable, the cry of the poor. Christmas shows us the door that God opens for us. It is a door made of faith, held open by love and supported by the threshold of hope! It leads us to a place where it is less important to worry about ourselves and more important to look to the others around us, where anxiety and fear are no longer necessary and joy fills our souls.
We can go through this door today. The journey will be different than it has in the past and it won’t look the same. We can’t go back, we shouldn’t go back. We can find new ways to celebrate, to create, to love and to live. The wonder and power of Christmas, of God’s Divine Self, is there to inspire and lead us into the bright unknown of tomorrow…..just as God did over two thousand years ago when a humble, little family, equipped with only a few possessions and deep faith, ventured forth.
A star shines bright. It always does. It never ends and never fails to lead us exactly where we need to be. God born in time as Jesus Christ forever changed the world. God born today, in all of us, can produce a miracle too. Search for the star. Find the open door. Walk bravely into the night. It’s Christmas.
Father Mark S. Suslenko
SS. Isidore and Maria Parish
December 25, 2020
