Elise Stefanik Instagram – 🕯️ Happy Hanukkah 🕯️- an especially meaningful holiday season with both Christmas and the first day of Hanukkah falling on the same day this year (this has only happened 4x!! since 1900)
Beautiful piece by @cardinaltimothymdolan in @nydailynews
“Let there be light!”
These are God’s first words to us in the Book of Genesis, the opening book of the Bible: “Let there be light!” as He gazed upon the darkness and commenced the sacred enterprise of His creation of the heavens and the earth. And He saw that it was good.
Christmas is indeed a feast of light, as is Chanukah, which begins tonight for our Jewish neighbors.
Imagine the darkness of the world that first Christmas in Bethlehem, the City of David. It came at the darkest time of the year, when the light of day shrinks as the sun reaches its lowest point. A carpenter and his pregnant wife were forced to make the arduous journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem in order to enroll in the required census.
Midnight Mass goers last evening would have heard Isaiah speak poetically about it, in that famous and beautiful passage from God’s holy word, the Bible: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shone.”
The shepherds are dazzled by the glorious radiance of the angels; the wise men are led by the brightness of a luminous star; Mary and Joseph are warmed by a fire in a barn, for there was, sadly, no room in the inn for the birth of the promised one.
But today we celebrate the birth of Jesus, who would tell us “I am the light of the world.” God so loved the world He did not send us a drone! God so loved the world that He sent us His Son, the “light of the world!”
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(continued in comments due to word limit) | Posted on 26/Dec/2024 06:11:59
