'Believe and receive'

Bishops of Kilmore, Bishop Ferran Glenfield and Bishop Leo O'Reilly, issued a joint message to the people of the region this Christmas.

Christmas is on the cards. Sending and receiving greeting cards is still part of our Christmas experience. The greeting is key because it was at the centre of the Christmas story in the Bible.

In St Luke’s Gospel, the Angel Gabriel was sent by God to Mary. His greeting and message troubled Mary: She was to conceive and to bear a son without human agency. He was to be called Jesus and he would be great and be called the Son of God.

Gabriel’s greeting and Mary’s response lie at the heart of Christmas.

God comes to us in Jesus, born of Mary. God steps into the world and shares our human experience. The babe of Bethlehem is God with us and at Christmas we wonder at the purposes of God and marvel at his ways.

It is God’s story we celebrate at Christmas and it can be our story too.

Like Mary we are favoured by God’s grace, and like her we are asked to believe and receive God’s gift, Jesus Christ his Son, as our Saviour and Lord.