4th Sunday of Advent

Over 100 years ago Father Damien deVeuster, (St. Damien of Molokai) a Belgian priest, began working with lepers on Molokai, a small Hawaiian island. Father Damien found a source of fresh water in the mountains and developed a system to bring it down to the colony. He built the first sanitation system and clinic. He and the lepers constructed a chapel for worship. Each Sunday Father Damien would begin his sermon with these words: “You lepers know that God loves you.” This went on for years. Finally, one Sunday Father Damien began his sermon this way: “We lepers know that God loves us.” Father Damien had contracted leprosy. Yet he went on loving and serving until his death in 1898. Even as Father Damien cast his lot in with the lepers, Jesus, Emmanuel, invested Himself totally in us sinners.
Let us check to see if Jesus is on our list this Christmas and if we have a special gift in mind for him. We all know the pleasure of finding the right present for our husband or wife, for our children, a good friend, a parent. What special gift are we giving to Jesus this year to honor his birth, and what do we expect from God? God sent Jesus from Heaven to earth to give us human beings what we really need most in life: hearts filled with love. That is the gift which Jesus really wants from us, and that is what you and I really need from God this Christmas – a heart filled with love.
The greatest gift we can give to those we love, is to have faith in them, believe in their dreams, and try to help them realize them. We need to believe in the dreams of our husband, wife, children, parents, leaders and friends, then try our best to help them realize those dreams. (Fr. Antony Kadavil)
God wants to give each of us a heart filled with love, mercy, compassion and forgiveness on this Christmas and every day of our lives.