Merry Christmas!

Peace of the Baby Jesus to all of you! Merry Christmas. It's finally here...the long awaited birth of our Savior. 

I write this still in my PJs from the comfort of sunny Florida. I've been back from Honduras now for a little over a week. To be honest, I couldn't have been more ready to get home. I was feeling a little spent, tired, frustrated...the last few weeks at the Mission were pretty busy and I was letting myself forget that it isn't what we do but who we are that gives us worth in God's eyes. So I showed up in Fort Myers like a giddy little girl taking in all the wonders of hot showers, walking/running outside by myself, drinking from the faucet, and silence at night. I do notice that I see things differently here after having been abroad and on Mission, but it didn't take me too long to get re-assimilated into this culture to some degree. The United States, for all its virtues and vices, is my home, and for that I am grateful. 

I had been waiting to get home for quite awhile; holding out for it, though I tried to remind myself that every day counts. And there were some pretty important days in the last few weeks...a medical brigade, a mountain evangelization mission...and the weeks of Advent, the Church's season of waiting. When asked in a community reflection what Advent means to me, I answered "anticipacion gozosa" which is my poor translation of Joyful Anticipation. It's joyful because we know that we have already been saved. The victory is already won. But I regret that my last few weeks weren't as joyful as they could have been. I lost a little bit of hope. I thought maybe it would all be restored the minute I stepped foot in the States. 

But when I got home, as joyful and happy as it has been, I realized again that my hope is not in the material things and comforts of the world, because I have those here, and I still long for more, for depth. My heart yearns for God, a God whose "ways are not my ways". I wondered if this Christmas which has been beautifully simple, would be as exciting and mysterious as Christmasses in the past, now that we're pretty grown up and there aren't kids around. Yesterday we went to the beach (sorry all you Northerners!) and I was reading the Pope's encyclical (a long letter he wrote, published last November).  I put it down to go for a walk and I stared out into the sea...and I wondered why it is that staring out to sea fills me with so much hope. We have no idea what's out there or what the other side looks like. It's the unknown that brings us so much hope. But for us Christians we are assured that Heaven is the other side! There is much suffering to endure while we wait, but we can receive it joyfully knowing that we are all really citizens of Heaven, no matter what our passport or paycheck says. One day we will all REALLY go home! The poor shepherds and the rich Magi alike came to adore Jesus in the poverty of His little manger. 

So Merry Christmas. God has found me through the love of my family here, as I pray He is doing for you today as well. I'll be going back to Honduras on January 12th with a renewed hope, but that will come when it comes--and I am grateful for this time here and in MI to unpack and keep reflecting upon the way God has worked in these past few months. I wish you a year of joy and few sufferings, but when they come, that you might face them with hope. You are certainly all in my prayers during this season of joy, as my gratitude radiates to wherever you are! I pray that these words of truth and wisdom might accompany you this Christmas season: 

"God cannot suffer, but he can suffer with. Man is worth so much to God that he himself became man in order to suffer with man in an utterly real way--in flesh and blood--as is revealed to us in the account of Jesus' Passion. Hence in all human suffering we are joined by one who experiences and carries that suffering with us; hence con-solatio is present in all suffering, the consolation of God's compassionate love--and so the star of hope rises." (Pope Benedict, Saved in Hope, p. 46)