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Archbishop’s Christmas message: Be vulnerable to God

Archbishop Jason Gordon chats with a Sealots resident at last Sunday’s children’s Christmas party organised by churches involved in the community. The archbishop also distributed hampers to families affected by a fire in late November. Photo: Gerard-Paul Wanliss.

The Son of God coming as a baby is inviting us to know the love of God and to reach out to others.

In his Christmas message Archbishop Jason Gordon asked citizens to reflect on the ways God calls us to love because if we understand that then we must understand the next step: “We now are called to love one another.”

The archbishop, in a pre-recorded video currently airing on Trinity TV and the Archdiocese’s Facebook page, said that Christmas is a season of incredible joy and celebration of the “gift of gifts—God sent His Son into the world for you and me”.

He said that God could have come accompanied by angels with a chariot and winged horses flying through the sky but it would have evoked people bowing down in fear, trembling and uncertainty about what to do. The relationship God seeks is not one of power and fear but of love, the archbishop said.

“Who cannot love a baby?” Archbishop Gordon asked. He added, “Why a baby? Well, a baby is the most vulnerable of all and a baby has a capacity, a way of making us all child-like…it has a way of disarming us and it has a way of making us powerless and vulnerable.”

Archbishop Gordon explained that individuals must also be vulnerable to each other and show humility by emptying self and allowing God and others in.

“This Christmas let us really rejoice in the amazing ways that God has loved us and let us ask God for this gift of love that so fills our hearts, that this love will pour out of us to everyone around.”

He appealed for citizens to seek out and care for the lonely, sick and others in need, even strangers. “Help them, love them and be the love of God to someone else this Christmas,” the Archbishop said. – LPG