The Church wants us to grasp this Advent, that the greatest blessings in this world are JESUS and our FAITH IN HIM. These are the gifts we should be longing for this Christmas, because these are the ones that will truly make us happy.
Even if we were to receive ALL the material things in the WORLD for Christmas, that would not be as valuable to us as the gift of God and the gift of increased faith in him. Mary cried out in her hymn of praise, “All generations will call her blessed.” And that prophecy came true. We still call her blessed today, for the same reasons, because “the Lord — the blessed fruit of her womb — is with her,” and because of her faith, which is the model for every disciple’s. This Christmas, the Lord is calling us to make these our priorities. The Father who gave us the gift of his Son that first Christmas wants to give us that Son anew this Christmas, to be God-with-us, Emmanuel, but he wants us to ask for him in faith and respond to him in faith, by making the time to be with God in prayer, by saying “let it be done to me according to your word” and allowing the Lord’s words to be fulfilled in us, in every moral decision we make.
