This is the day when perfect love came into our world. Merry Christmas!

Christmas recalls the birth of Jesus two thousand years ago in the poorest of circumstances in an out of the way place, called Bethlehem, in Palestine. But Christmas is much more than the birth of the baby Jesus a long, long time ago. It is about your rebirth when you let Jesus into your heart and accept his gift of redemptive love. Redemptive love is called agape in the New Testament, and is marked by a passionate concern for the needs, physical and spiritual, of other people. This love, this gift of Christmas, can penetrate human selfishness with power to find a new center for your life in the transformative love of Christ. Real love is an action of sacrificial giving, and the greatest act of love anyone can perform is to give himself or herself for others. This is what Jesus did. “No greater love is there,” Jesus reminds us, “than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15 : 13).

What difference would it make if Jesus was born in Bethlehem a thousand times over, but was not born within you, in your heart? Christmas is a matter of the heart, a heartfelt relationship with the son of God who was born this day to show you how to love God and one another. Christmas thrives as long as people of good will walk the walk of Christ, as long as they show kindness towards one another, as long as they reject the false gods of society, as long as they reach out to the poor and the destitute, as long as they remember that whatever they do to the least of his people they do to him (Matthew 25 : 40).

Jesus wants to come into your life, be your best friend, and the way for you to be his faithful friend is by following him. His commandment is that you love one another as he has loved you (John 13 : 34). Whenever you reach out to others with compassion, with kindness, with patience and understanding, and help them with their physical and spiritual needs, you are putting Jesus’s example of love into practice. What better gift can you give to anyone, at any time or in any place? Do not forget this gift of gifts as you celebrate Christmas in your home, with your family and friends and neighbors this year. Be kind to one another.

The gift of love that Jesus brings into your life at Christmas cannot be bought at any price because it is invaluable. It is the gift of gifts which enables you to love the way he loved you. All that He requires of you is a humble and grateful heart that’s willing to be renewed by his Love.

Christmas blooms where there is love because Jesus is love in the flesh. That’s the meaning of the Incarnation: God’s Love wrapped in human flesh for the redemption of humankind. This miraculous gift of love brings peace and joy to all people of good will as it did on that first Christmas Day in Bethlehem two thousand years ago.

May your Christmas be one that brings you peace and joy, and may you gently pass it on to others.

Merry Christmas!

—Fr. Hugh Duffy