Oblates of St. Francis de Sales

New DeSales World Newsletter - Summer Edition

Christmas Day (December 25, 2005)

Readings Is 52: 7 - 10 Ps 98: 1-6 Heb 1: 1-6 Jn 1: 1-18 or 1: 1-5, 9-14

Suggested Emphasis

"All the ends of the earth have seen the saving power of God."

Salesian Perspective

"God has signified to us in so many ways and by so many means that God wills that all of us should be saved that no one can claim to be ignorant of this fact. For this very purpose God made us "in his own image and likeness" by Creation, and by the Incarnation God has made himself in our image and likeness, after which he suffered death in order to ransom and save us." (Treatise on the Love of God, Book VIII, Chapter 4)

From the beginning of time God has desired that all of us come to know the truth and be saved by the truth. What is this truth? We are made in God's image and likeness; we share in the very essence of God's divine life; we are awash in God's creative, redeeming and inspiring love; we are meant to grow this life and love here on earth; we are destined to experience that love and life forever in heaven.

Beyond the obvious comforting images in which we are awash at Christmas - images of the stable, the "star of wonder," the magi, the shepherds and the angel choir - there is a hard and unavoidable truth: while God desires that we be saved, the decision is still ours to make. Francis de Sales observed: "All men are not saved, although the will that all should be saved still remains God's true will, for God acts in us according to the condition of both divine and human nature. God's goodness moves him to communicate liberally to us the help of his grace so that we may come to the joy of God's glory, but our nature requires that God's liberality should leave us at liberty to use it for our salvation or to neglect it to our damnation." (Ibid)

This is not an attempt to rain on the parade of the Christmas promise of joy, peace, reconciliation and joy. This is not meant to throw wet blanket over the season of year which Francis de Sales described as "dedicated to the sovereign mercy and generosity shown to us by the Son of God when he was born on earth for our salvation." (Stopp, Selected Letters, p. 294) To put it simply, Christmas is a time to ask ourselves the question: do we take the gift of Jesus Christ in our lives as seriously as God does? Put another way, are we as interested in the eternal disposition of our souls as God is?

All the ends of the earth have seen the saving power of God in the birth of the Messiah. Would that all the ends of the earth - starting with people like you and me - would choose to accept it.

To say nothing of sharing it.

Rev. Michael S. Murray, OSFS is Executive Director of the De Sales Spirituality Center.