Christmas Message from Bishop Provost

Christmas 2025

 “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.”  — Isaiah 9:1

If you would, please permit me to recount an amusing story from my early priesthood. 

As a young priest just ordained, I brought Holy Communion to a lady homebound in the parish who would not rise from bed before late morning.   She told me her friends would say, “You’re missing the most beautiful part of the day — sunrise.”   So, she continued, she got up early one day to see what they were talking about.  She concluded the sunrise was “highly overrated.”   I am afraid that many live their lives without experiencing the sunrise that is Christmas.

Isaiah proclaims to us a prophecy of the coming Messiah using the light of dawn.  He writes, “Upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shone” (Isaiah 9:1).   Prophets and poets have used the beauty of the sun rising to describe the coming of something new for centuries.   Homer described the experience in these breathtaking terms: “[M]orning-born Dawn touched the sky with her fingertips of rose” (The Odyssey, Book 3, v. 491).   However, nothing can equal the description of the prophets and the magnificent description of the first Christmas night in the Gospel of St. Luke.  

Shepherds are keeping watch over their sheep by night.  Suddenly, “[t]he angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them” (Luke 2:9).   The dark chasm of night is breached by a heavenly apparition.   God has shattered the midnight darkness, and His messenger proclaims the fulfillment of a mystery spoken of from ages past — “For today in the city of David a savior has been born” (Luke 2:11).   The dreams of the Old Testament prophets are brought to completion at dawn.  An “extraordinarily coherent narrative” — in words of a noted modern, secular historian (cf. John Burrow, A History of Histories) — prepares the world to receive a message — “good news of great joy” (Luke 2:10).  We are redeemed.

The “good news” transcends worldly concerns.   The Messiah does not pierce the darkness to have us remain mired in material affairs.   “[T]he glory of the Lord” comes to shed light on the shadowy figures that can inhabit our lowest instincts.  We are not to place our faith in structures and a process.   Our faith is directed to the Son — the Word of God made flesh.   This vision of a new day dawning in Christ inspired St. Paul to write, “He delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Colossians 1:13). 

So, to return to my elderly friend, why do we remain asleep, missing the dawn, unable to rise from bed?  Complacency, perhaps?  Fear?  Ignorance?  We must not miss the dawn.   God does not will our death but our life.  He wants us to live in Him.   We must cast aside darkness and put on the vesture of light (cf. Romans 13:12).   God did not create us to live self-centered lives of destruction, seeking fulfillment in the attractions of this world that lead nowhere.  No, we are created to live good lives in conformity to God’s Will here on earth with a hope in the life to come.

Therefore, let your Christmas be a new beginning.  Put aside darkness.  The light has dawned.  A new day is appearing.  There is always hope.  I am moved to recall the prophet Isaiah’s use of another image that appears at dawn, the dew.  He writes, “Let justice descend, O heavens, like dew from above, like gentle rain let the skies drop it down.   Let the earth open and salvation bud forth, let justice also spring up!  I, the Lord, have created this” (Isaiah 45:8). 

As the earth opens to receive the dew of dawn, may our hearts open to receive the newborn Son of God.

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