This is such a wonderful season – lights, friendship, sharing, gifts, giving and receiving, praying etc. Everyone seems pretty peaceful. It is a long season – seems like it started at Halloween and it seems to end very quickly, in fact, we were in two stores today where the “Christmas stuff” was already gone and hints of Valentine’s Day and Easter were already showing themselves on the shelves!!  WOW!

We usually focus on the Child Jesus.  Yes, the Word was made flesh, the Incarnation is real, the Lord broke the barriers of time and timelessness and became a man like us, a person like us, laughing, crying, wondering, imagining, reading, studying etc. Jesus the baby, the young man, Jesus the adult knows now what we know about life. He lived like us, loved like us, learned like us and faced the major problems and crisis of life like us

But for today I would like to focus on Marriage. Jesus was able to live fully because of the unconditional love of his mother and father. What a spectacular model of love – what a model of Marriage. From the moment they were brought together, they were in stress, in love, and in touch with their Creator. What courage, what strength, what faith to say not my will but yours be done.

They, like us, are married and we like them are called to unconditional love – that is, no matter what the future holds. Joseph and Mary came to know, live in, and share their love for each other and with their Son. They taught him skills, values, life lessons. They grew in their love for each other.

Joseph was clearly the quiet, loving, gentle, Just Dad and faithful husband. Mary was accepting, a guide, faith-filled, and a truly loving Mom and wife who would never abandon her husband or her son – even to their deaths.

Let’s remember that when we said I DO, we said yes to the unknown! Yes, to unconditional love! We could not see the future, but we believed that when we said yes I do, we meant that unconditionally and with a total sense of surrender to the will of the Creator and to the process of growth in the relationship. Living life opens many great and difficult doors for each married couple Grow together! Renew your YES this Christmas and demonstrate that your love is a mirror image of the love of Joseph and Mary who married each other so that they could grow together in doing the Creator’s will in their lives. Grow together unconditionally.

Merry Christmas – Blessings for the New Year!