Prayers for Christmas: Why Christmas?

“Why Christmas?

Our vision, our purpose, our goal: to know, to love, and to serve God.

To know God, to know the love between the Trinity, to know the Son, and through Him the Father, and the love that is the Spirit. To know the almighty, the creator, the everlasting, the all-knowing, the powerful. And to know that this person more powerful than earthquakes, hurricanes, tornados, lightning, thunder, immense water falls, loves us individually, even to knowing the hairs on our head. He cares about each of us.

If we know these things about Him and so much more, how can we not love Him? He is the example of a perfect lover. We know that He loves us enough to have come to earth in a form we could easily relate to, a baby. He grew into a young man who lived a difficult life while he taught his apostles and disciples about heaven and His Father. He established a Church to sustain us throughout the ages. He even gave us the sacraments to maintain and encourage us. He died for us. So it should not be hard to love Him. And we can ask for His help in learning this loving as well as in our other problems and weaknesses in life.

And can we serve a God who we can know, who has shown us how He loves us and shows us that we can love Him? Christ has told us that we are to love God and love our neighbor. He has set out the Beatitudes to give us more specific guidelines. And He gave us the examples of His serving others during His own lifetime. 

Cecilia and her husband Tim are on their second mission with FMS. They currently serve AIDS patients at St. Francis Clinic in Johannesburg.  

Franciscan Mission Service is so thankful for the loving service of the Marcys and all of our missioners overseas. We are grateful for all of our donors who allow us to continue to train and send missioners as lights of Christ to the poorest corners of the Earth.