HOLY YEAR CHRISTMAS
When the Spirit planned
this Holy Year
that overlaps with Christmas,
she chose a Pontiff
in Greccio’s hues,
and every word became a banner
describing the Year of Mercy.
More people share life
to make the Mercy Year festive
than all the prior people of history,
the ones who called for Emmanuel.
Saint Francis and his friars
composed those lilting carols
that made the steeples shake
and the singing peoples’ hearts
rejoicing with Emmanuel on hand,
for they recognized
the gift of light
and blazed the planet
with billions of merry-making bulbs
competing by count with all the stars
in range of human sight.
The lights of Christmas
trap the sun for earth,
to help discover Emmanuel
arriving as an infant,
conveying the infinite gift
of mercy,
by surrendering himself
to the total trust an infant requires,
so that all who touch him
have learned of his gentleness,
and how to convey the ways
of mercy,
with all the world in sway
with mercy’s melodies of Christmas,
like Mary’s trusting lullaby.
Christmas 2015
Bonaventure Stefun, OFM Cap.
See more Mercy Year reflections.
See reflections from Ordinary Time here.
Also see reflections from the Lent-Easter series here.