Focus on the Christmas story

RICHARD A. SOKERKA

As the celebration of Christmas comes fully into view, now just days from today, the economic news grows more troubling by the day.

The concern about just how far the U.S. economy will continue to grow with inflation raging at its highest percentage in nearly five decades seems to be on everyone’s mind as they try to complete their Christmas shopping with their budgets strained more than ever by higher prices on everything.

There are even deeper concerns about people’s mental health this Christmas.

Medical experts have long held that more Americans are depressed around Christmas than at any other time of the year. Added to that worry this year, is the ongoing pandemic and the frightening number of deaths from COVID that have affected so many families right here in our own Diocese and across our nation.

That is why it is so vitally important to turn our attention in these last days of Advent to the coming birth of the Prince of Peace.

If we focus on the Christmas story, our troubles pale in comparison.

Mary was pregnant with child that was not her husband’s child. Joseph could have turned away from his wife, Mary. Yet, he chose to embrace her and protect her and the child in her womb.

When the time came for Mary to give birth, the Holy Family was homeless and had to find space among the animals in a stable for the Savior of the world to be born.

On the surface, the Christmas story is a story of everything gone wrong, but truly in the end, it was one where everything went right for the sake of every single one of us.

Yes, we all are experiencing troubles in these turbulent times, but if we focus on the Christmas story and embrace the Christ Child, we will indeed have a Merry Christmas. Our troubles will seem insignificant as with great joy, we will celebrate the birth of the Christ Child in our world, who came to save us all.