Ever since I was a young boy, I have always been fascinated by Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.  

The ageless story of Ebenezer Scrooge is a beloved holiday classic, powerfully illustrating the transforming grace of love.  

The ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future take Scrooge on a journey through his life, revealing the pain of his loveless and lonely childhood, the promise of a budding romance with a wonderful young lady, his early success as a clerk, the tragic death of his sister, and his growing business acumen.  

Gradually, the lure of greed and wealth constricts Ebenezer’s heart, as he shuts love, friendship, joy, and generosity out of his life.  

In the end, he sees with terrifying clarity how his present lonely, sad, and selfish life will end: Dying alone, unloved, and forgotten.

This shocking vision of how a futile life without love will turn out shakes Scrooge to the core of his soul and converts him on the spot!

He wakes up on Christmas morning a profoundly changed man. He apologizes to his nephew, whom he has snubbed for years; he raises Bob Cratchit’s salary, the man who serves as his clerk; and Scrooge becomes a beloved, paternal figure in the life of the Cratchit family, especially Tiny Tim.  

He became a man of abundant love, joy, generosity, and good cheer. No one in all of London kept Christmas as Ebenezer Scrooge kept it.

The love of Christ

In the wonder of Christmas, we experience the amazing and transforming power of the love of Christ, who comes into the world to rescue the human race from sin and death.

When we let this divine life of mercy and grace enter into our lives and hearts, like Scrooge, we discover the beauty of life, the joy of generosity, and the gift of compassion.

Our souls magnify the Lord as we experience the sheer gift of our life in Christ.

The liturgical year is a grand circle of celebration of the Christ event, as the Church moves through the sacred seasons marking Jesus’ birth, life, death, and Resurrection.

We come back every December 25 to the astounding truth of the Incarnation.

I like to think of this prayerful circle as an ascending spiral staircase. We circle around, but we have ascended higher since we passed this spiritual point last year.

We can ask ourselves, therefore: How will our experience of Christmas be different this year? How have we grown spiritually? Is my experience of God and my fidelity to the Gospel somehow richer and deeper than it was a year ago? Am I more loving, compassionate, and merciful? Have I allowed the Lord to root out more sin, selfishness, fear, and anger from my heart?

He enters the world

In the birth of Christ, God entered the world in silence, humility, and poverty.

His Advent is unobtrusive, only known and noticed by a few.

The King of Kings has no grand entrance; no blare of horns announces His birth; He is laid in a manger for animals, not on a feather mattress in an opulent palace.

His courtiers are rough shepherds from the countryside, not royal attendants.

This beautiful paradox of God’s simplicity teaches us to look for Him in humble places —  the Eucharistic Host at Mass, the longing glance of a homeless woman, the inspiration of God’s Word, the silence of prayer, and the love of family and friends.

No matter how sad, broken, violent, and poor the world may seem at any given moment, Christmas lifts the human spirit, bidding us to embrace our better angels.

In the birth of the Lord, God has broken through every barrier and wall — the separation between divinity and humanity, the wall between eternal life and this world of death, and the distance between grace and sin — to identify with us and unite Himself to us.

By embracing our human nature, Jesus forgives, transforms, and saves us from within our own experience.

As Ebenezer Scrooge painfully and joyfully discovered, life without love, an existence turned in on itself, a heart cut off from joy and kindness, becomes a living death.

At Christmas, God gives us the chance to live as He always intended us to and how we deep down want to live.

As Tiny Tim so memorably said, “God bless us, every one!”

A joyous and blessed Christmas to all of you!