Dear Friends in Christ,

I wish all of you a very blessed Christmas. I pray that the Lord Jesus, who became one with us through his birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary, will fill every part of your lives with his peace and love.

Some of us come to this Christmas as relative novices in keeping Christmas; others of us are real veterans, with scores of Christmases to our credit. All of us have a certain tally of Christmases “in our account.”

There is a way that we are accustomed to mark out the cycle of our Christmases — whether it be relatively long or short — by recalling particular events associated with them. For example: “the Christmas when Liz and Bill got engaged,” or “our first Christmas in the new home.” And of course, there are the sad markers, like “the first Christmas after Dad passed.” There is in this way of keeping count of our Christmases, I think, a solid Christian instinct, an insight rooted in the faith.

The insight I have in mind is this conviction: that as our lives unfold, year by year, Jesus is part of every event of every day. That is, when the Son of God took on our human nature, he entered into human history, never to leave it. “The Word became flesh” so that he could “dwell among us,” as St. John puts it; and dwell not as a stranger, ready to move on at his convenience, but as one who will never cease to be with us. The Incarnation is permanent.

God became man in order to become inextricably woven into the history of the world and into the personal history of each of us. When the Holy Spirit overshadowed the Virgin Mary and God the Son became incarnate in her womb, the Son made our destiny — our hopes and disappointments, our joys and sorrows, our triumphs and our failures — his. God is “with us”: Emmanuel.

I pray that this conviction dawn anew for each of you this Christmas, “Christmas 2013.” By the power of the Holy Spirit, may you have a renewed affirmation of the truth that Christ is part of your life — if you let him. We are free. We can shut Jesus out of our lives. He respects our freedom, for after all he made us free, and he will not force himself or his friendship upon us.

I invite each of you to take some quiet time, even amidst the business of the holiday season, to look attentively at the statue of the Infant Jesus in the manger, at home or at church, and recognize once more that the One depicted there is God the Son become man, so that you and I become God’s adopted sons and daughters, living already in our days on earth the life God has prepared for us in heaven. And from the recognition, let the Holy Spirit lead you to welcome Jesus into your life, to be part of everything you do, part of your every thought and feeling, your every plan and action, every hope and fear. Invite Jesus, the Father’s Word, to take flesh in you.
Merry Christmas to you and your loved ones, and many graces in the New Year.

Sincerely yours in Christ,

The Most Reverend Allen H. Vigneron
Archbishop of Detroit