Christ is born again each year in our hearts

Many people find winter difficult; with cold weather and very little sunlight, it can be a tough time. But it is during these weeks that Christians celebrate something amazing: God entering into humanity, putting on skin and living among us as a full human person in a way that we still find hard to put into words. Jesus – a Palestinian Jew who was born into a homeless family in an animal shelter in a remote part of the Roman Empire – was marginalised from the very beginning. Yet he transformed history and continues to transform our lives today.

Into all the harrowing struggles of our world, then and now, God is born. Christ is born again each year in our hearts if we can make room for him there and in our world if we look with awareness in ordinary places. As we light the white candle on the Advent wreath on Christmas morning, let us remember what it represents: the peace, unity and hope for which the world desperately longs. We are invited to rejoice with the angels and the shepherds, joining together in praise and singing, ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth peace, good will among people’.

Excerpted from The Deep End: A Journey with the Sunday Gospels in the Year of Mark by Tríona Doherty and Jane Mellet