Provincial Ponderings - December 2024 - The Redemptorists of the Baltimore Province

December 20, 2024

by Rev. John Collins, C.Ss.R.

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I come to this Christmas pondering with you and find myself keenly aware of my desire to ponder less and to pray more fervently. The wonder of the Incarnation in the birth of Jesus Christ stirs my wish, my hope, and my prayer that our joyful celebration of the feast of his Nativity may deepen our awareness of who we are: the beloved of God who has embraced our humanity. Out of abundant love, and with an eternal longing to be Emmanuel, God-with-us, Christ humbled himself to share in our humanity so that we may share in his divinity. Wow! What dignity and destiny we share as a people so loved! As humanity and divinity comingle in Christ, truly God and truly human, so too in us, by the grace of the Holy Spirit that has been poured into us.

The Scriptural text from the Pauline Letter to the Ephesians, chapter 3:14-20 below, gives clear and powerful voice to my prayer for you and for all of God’s people, as we celebrate this holy and beautiful season. I share it with you as a Christmas gift and blessing to hopefully inspire your deeper trust in the promise of your life and in the power of love within you and within all of humankind.

For this reason, I kneel before the Father,

from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named,

that God may grant you in accord with the riches of his glory

to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner most being,

and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith;

that you, rooted and grounded in love,

may have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones

what is the breadth and length and height and depth,

and to experience the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge,

so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to accomplish far more than all we ask or imagine,

by the power at work within us,

to God be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever.

Amen.

Be assured of my prayers throughout this Christmas season that you experience the presence of God and the power of his Spirit in your innermost self, so that together with our sisters and brothers throughout the world, we may all embrace and live out the deep and plentiful love that first came to birth in human form in Bethlehem of long ago.
Glory to God in the highest. And on earth peace to people of good will.
Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!
God bless us all! †