Merry Christmas!: A Festival of Surprise

Waking up to Christmas Ham and hot chocolate with the entire family - what a great Christmas :)

Merry Christmas and good morning guys! :) 


I hope you all had a great Noche Buena last night - we definitely did. Since my siblings are always so busy, I felt so blessed that we were all together for a meal last night. 


I noticed that as my siblings are getting older, the more and more I hold on to old family traditions like setting up the Christmas tree together, eating together, etc. Aww I can't imagine not seeing my siblings in their rooms when I wake up on Christmas morning.


Oops, sorry for the short drama. :) 


Anyway, since it's CHRISTmas day, I want to leave you with a short Christmas Homily by Fr. Horacio dela Costa, SJ, "A Festival of Surprise". 
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CHRISTMAS is when we cel­e­brate the unex­pected; it is the fes­ti­val of surprise.

This is the night when shep­herds wake to the song of angels; when the earth has a star for a satel­lite; when wise men go on a fool’s errand, bring­ing gifts to a Prince they have not seen, in a coun­try they do not know.

This is the night when one small don­key, bears on its back, the weight of the world’s desire, and an ox plays host to the Lord of heaven. This is the night when we are told to seek our king, not in a palace, but in a stable.

Although we have stood here, year after year, as our fathers before us, the won­der has not faded; nor will it ever fade; the won­der of that moment when we push open that lit­tle door, and enter, and enter­ing find, a mother who is vir­gin, and a baby who is God.

Chester­ton has said it for us all: the only way to view Christ­mas prop­erly is to stand on one’s head. Was there ever a home more topsy-turvy than Christ­mas, the cave where Christ was born? For here, sud­denly, in the very heart of earth, is heaven; down is up, and up is down; the angels look down on the God who made them, and God looks up to the things he made.

There is no room in an Inn for Him who made room and to spare, for the Milky Way, and where God is home­less, all men are at home.

We were promised a sav­ior, but we never dreamed God Him­self would come and save us. We know that He loved us, but we never dared to think that he loved us so much as to become one of us.

But that is the way God gives. His gifts are never quite what we expect, but always some­thing bet­ter than we hoped for. We can only dream of things too good to be true; God has a habit of giv­ing things too true to be false. That is why our faith is a faith of the unex­pected, a reli­gion of surprise.

Now, more than ever, liv­ing in times so trou­bled, fac­ing a future so uncer­tain, we need such faith. We need it for our­selves, and we need to give it to others.

We must remind the world that if Christ­mas comes in the depths of win­ter, it is that there may be an Easter in the spring.
---

Hope you loved the Christmas homily in as much as I did. :)


So for those who are celebrating Christmas away from their families, just hold on and believe that God will give us things better than we have hoped for. He has proven this multiple times and today, we celebrate yet another proof of His love for us - Jesus Christ. 


Merry Christmas guys! :)


Love,
Smarla


~It's the little sweet notes everyday that matter. :)~