Dear Folks,

The Feast of the Holy Family falls right smack in the middle of Christmas week. This year I lost track of the number of children that my 23 nieces and nephews have. Yep… what an uncle I am! But life is such an amazing blessing and mystery. I have observed how life has slowed down for my sisters and nieces as their lives life now really revolve around their newborns. Ok, slowed down isn’t the best word, as any parent can attest, but many of the things that they would otherwise be doing (social visits, extended family gatherings) just give way to the singular importance of caring for a new child. My sisters have dropped everything to be with their new grandchildren.

This is also fitting because the recent birth of the newest grand-nephews came just 2 weeks ago. Exactly as we were preparing for and reflecting on the birth of Our Lord. We run around ‘getting ready for Christmas’, we celebrate his birth with big fanfare and party, and now?…. Our lives do slow down this week. Thanks be to God! Do our lives revolve around this Child who has been born of the Virgin Mary? In your own experiences of the miracle of life, I hope you can see an image of the Life who has come into the world.

pax et bonum,

Fr. John Mosimann