Give the best gift to your family members: Your love

    Very soon we will celebrate the birthday of our Lord and brother Jesus Christ, God’s greatest gift of love. God sent his son to bring us the Father’s love and mercy and to show us how to love as he loves us. What a blessing it is to have this great Feast of Christmas to remind us of God’s mysterious love!

    As we began Advent, my message called on families to be holy families. I wrote that holy families are not “perfect families but families committed to respecting one another, sharing faith and reaching out to those in need.”
    We can often take for granted the members of our families. Because they are closest to us, it can be harder to forgive them when they hurt us and easier to be short-tempered and inconsiderate with them in times of anger or frustration. This is not following God’s example of love. God calls us to forgiveness, wants to forgive us and offers us so many opportunities to be forgiven. He calls us to be closest to him in our sufferings. Above all, he loves us unconditionally. May I further challenge all of us to strive to love as God loves us? To forgive one another and to love one another unconditionally?
    But, this message of love must not end in our homes. It must be lived in our church parishes, in our workplaces and in our communities. This is how we can best celebrate the spirit of Christmas now and throughout the New Year.  
    I can think of no greater Christmas gift you could give to members of your family and to those in your church parish, workplace or community than to live as holy families, for this is why Jesus came into this world. He came to teach us to be holy families. He calls us to love one another as God loves us, to forgive as we are forgiven, and to be self-sacrificing, humble and joyful in that love for one another always.
    May the blessings of the Christmas season be with you and your families now and throughout 2014. Know that I am praying for you and I ask you to pray for me in this holy season.  
   
Sincerely in Christ,
Most Reverend Gregory M. Aymond
Archbishop of New Orleans