Joy to the World!

“If a child or brother or sister or a loved one of yours strays from the church in terms of faith practice and morality, as long as you continue to love that person, and hold him or her in union and forgiveness, he or she is touching the hem of the garment, is held to the Body of Christ, and is forgiven by God, irrespective of his or her official external relationship to the church and Christian morality.

“Your touch is Christ’s touch. …

“What a marvelous description of the incarnation. It is too good to be true. It is precisely because of this incredible, unimaginable, goodness that we sing so joyfully in the Christmas carol: ‘Joy to the world, the Lord has come!’ In Jesus’ birth, something fundamental has changed. God has give us the power, literally, to keep each other out of hell.“

-Ronald Rolheiser in “The Consequences of the Incarnation for Spirituality”