Certain Things

Merry Christmas!

What an amazing thing to be celebrating the birth of our God, into the world that He created!

This is truly something to ponder. That God Himself would choose to become one of us, so that we could eventually have a chance to be like Him. What kind of God does that?!

Christmas Mass was so beautiful, and the Homily was a message straight from the Heart of Jesus.
It is still echoing in my own. That the Mercy of God, and His tremendous love has overcome all that the world can throw at us. He is with us and "It's gonna be okay."
I have heard this in my heart over and over and the affirmation of that message for me gives me so much hope!

This morning at Mass we heard in the first reading about the martyrdom of St Stephen.
This is also such an important thing to ponder. That the martyrs are truly a gift to the Church and the world.
Father talked about the power of the grace of forgiveness.
He also said that no Christian martyr has ever died for a cause, they die for a person.
To be willing to give up your life for Christ, and to be able to see the way that death can be a gift to the world, an outpouring not just of blood, but of Grace, as was St Stephen's, is huge. St Stephen died for Christ and the Kingdom, and the grace of his love and forgiveness fell on a young man named Saul, who would become Paul, who would go on to evangelize half of the known world at the time. Paul would himself be martyred, and the dance goes on.

Thank you, dear Lord, for this beautiful, wild world, for certainty in uncertain times.
We rest in you and we live in you, and God willing, we will die in you.

Praised be Jesus, now and forever!