Are You Really Ready for Christmas?

Web Posted: December 22, 2003

As the rush of Christmas preparations reaches a crescendo, we can feel as if we are never quite "ready" for this holy season.  In a 1978 homily, the late Archbishop Oscar Romero reminds us that Christmas is best experienced when we know ourselves to be poor, imperfect and quite "unready" in many ways.  Therefore, this Christmas and in the other holy feasts celebrated by members of the Marquette community, let us give thanks for the imperfections that will lead us toward God.

"No one can celebrate a genuine Christmas without being truly poor. "The self-sufficient, the proud, those who, because they have everything, look down on others, those who have no need of God - for them there will be no Christmas. "Only the poor, the hungry, those who need someone to come on their behalf,  will have that someone. That someone is God, Emmanuel, God-with-us. Without poverty of spirit there can be no abundance of God." Archbishop Oscar Romero Homily on Christmas Eve, 1978