A Christmas Message from Bishop Susan Bell

Posted December 23, 2023

Bishop's Arms

A Message from the Bishop of Niagara
The Right Reverend Susan Bell

 

 

Dear friends:

Merry Christmas as we celebrate the birth of our Lord!

This is a celebration on every level. I don’t mean just the present unwrapping and feasting—although blessings if your Christmas looks like that. I hope you’re having a marvellous time.

What I mean is the celebration at the heart of Christ’s mass today. This is the celebration of a great and important love. God so loved the world that God gave his only Son that we might have life—life now and life eternal.

But as is so often the way—as scripture tells us over and again, this great love was found in people that this world doesn’t rate much. And yet God’s love works through these people, like a small, vulnerable baby, his very poor parents, even poorer shepherds, and wandering theologians looking for someone to save the world.  God’s love pulses through the deep longings of the heart for redemption and peace given voice by prophets generation after generation.

Here’s the thing: God’s love still works through people this way.

Loving act by loving act you’re helping to dismantle the powers and principalities of this world. And isn’t that just what our world needs right now? Small things done with great and important love change the world. The story of Jesus’ birth should tell us that. This is the pattern of God’s love. God's love works through the poor, the wise, and the faithful now as always.

So at Christmas, in addition to all the other good things we enjoy, we also remember to touch the centre—to hold to our hearts the truth, that by coming to us, even in vulnerability, perhaps especially because of that vulnerability, God shows us how powerful this great and important love is.

Happy Christmas my friends. May you spend this season knowing how loved you are and sharing that love with our world.

Sincerely,

The Right Reverend Susan J.A. Bell
Bishop of Niagara

 

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