Dear Friends,

I recently stood on a cliff, overlooking the ocean at night under millions of stars, and the power and majesty of God was palpable. My thoughts centered on the birth of my newest grandchild—so tiny, so perfect—and the mystery of the Incarnation. I thought on how God the Father so loved the Son that he created all things, including you and I, through him. That Son, who seeing his Father so in love with our humanity, willingly left his heavenly throne to become man—a tiny vulnerable baby just like the one I held in my arms a few hours after her birth— to save us.

There under heaven’s canopy, it felt like I could almost reach out and touch the mystery of the King of the Universe who became a baby lying in a manger, and yet the mystery eludes me.

I was reminded of a poem written by St. John of the Cross, one of my favorite saints. He writes of his contemplative prayer experiences as he entered into “unknowing,” and yet he understood great things, things that transcend human knowledge. Mystery. The poem says: “That perfect knowledge was of peace and holiness held at no remove in profound solitude; it was something so secret that I was left stammering, transcending all knowledge” (Stanzas Concerning an Ecstasy Experienced in High Contemplation). And he was so overwhelmed by the prayerful experience that his senses were left deprived of all their sensing; his spirit was given an understanding while not understanding, transcending all knowledge.

The entire story of the birth of our Lord is one we understand, and yet, it transcends our knowledge at the same time. We think we know, but we don’t really understand, the depths of what God did for us. Or we understand, but we don’t really know, a love that pure and that generous. My prayer for all our readers this Christmas is that each of you will reach out and touch the mystery of the Incarnation. Look up at the sky and its millions of stars knowing each one was created and known by our God and then gaze on the face of a little child also created and known by God, and enter the mystery of the greatest love story ever told.

Yours in the Heart of Jesus,

Donna