Villa la Paz Newsletter December 2008
Love: a deep and tender feeling of affection or attachment or devotion to a person; a feeling of brotherhood and good will towards other people; Theol. a) God’s tender regard and concern for mankind b) mankind’s devotion to and desire for God as the supreme good.
Webster’s New World Dictionary
Third College Edition
Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love.
Hamilton Wright Mabi
A year is ending, a new one will shortly begin. How fitting it is to end each year with the season of love, Christmas. The magic of Christmas stems from its emphasis on love. We put others before ourselves. We shop for gifts that will please those we love. We bake and cook for friends and family, again to express our love and care for them. Our love is also directed to strangers and persons we may never meet as we donate to charities and turn our concern to the poor and marginalized. The Christmas season itself compels us to reflect on its origin, the eternal and unconditional love through which the Infinite became finite to heal and save a broken world. The intense feeling of love that we have for one another has its origin in our Father’s everlasting love for us. On receiving His love, dwelling in His embrace, we are compelled to transmit it to others, to share it with others and in so doing reflect the life of the Trinity since our Father, we and the one we direct our love to are locked in a mutual embrace. Since His love is gratuitous, we must also love gratuitously, expecting nothing in return.
Our children have also experienced His embrace. They enter our home with broken bodies and, in some instances, with broken spirits. We strive to furnish them with all that they need to restore them to physical and spiritual health. We do not always succeed but in caring for them we reflect God’s love in a world that remains fragmented and in desperate need of His healing power.
We are called to be like God, to empty ourselves of everything but love and to share that love with others and all creation by becoming more and more merciful, compassionate, forgiving and understanding.
Gerald Thomas Straub
In the evening of life, we shall be judged on love.
St. John of the Cross
I want to end this letter with a Christmas prayer by Robert Louis Stevenson. It speaks to our highest aspirations that our world be healed of its divisions and love would flourish.
Loving Father,
help us remember the birth of Jesus,
that we may share in the song of the angels,
the gladness of the shepherds,
and worship of the wise men.Close the door of hate
and open the door of love all over the world.
Let kindness come with every gift
and good desires with every greeting.
Deliver us from evil by the blessing
which Christ brings,
and teach us to be merry with clear hearts.May the Christmas morning
make us happy to be thy children,
and Christmas evening bring us to our beds
with grateful thoughts,
forgiving and forgiven
for Jesus’ sake.
Amen.
We Thank you for making the care of our children possible. May you have a most Blessed Christmas and Fulfilling New Year. We love you and wish you God’s peace.