Christmas quotes

Here are a few quotes to challenge and sustain us during this season of Advent and Christmas:

"And when we give each other Christmas gifts in His name, let us remember that He has given us the sun and the moon and the stars and the earth with its forests and mountains and oceans — and all that lives and moves upon them. He has given us all green things and everything that blossoms and bears fruit – and all that we quarrel about and all that we have misused – and to save us from our own foolishness, for all our sins, He has come down to earth and gave us Himself."

Sigrid Undset, Norwegian novelist

“Today there is neither the glorifying of God nor peace on earth. As long as a hunger is not stilled and as long as we have not uprooted violence from our civilization, Christ is not yet born.”

Mohandas K. Gandhi

“No one can celebrate a genuine Christmas without being truly poor. The self sufficient, the proud, those who, because they have everything, look down on others, those who have no need of God — for them there will be no Christmas. Only the poor, the hungry, those who need someone to come on their behalf, will have that someone. That someone is God, Emmanuel, God-with-us. Without poverty of spirit, there can be no abundance of God.”

Archbishop Oscar Romero, December 24, 1978

A "nacimiento" at the Catholic University campus, Santa Rosa

"Preparing for Christmas means experiencing the joy of knowing that God loves us....
"...our faith has to become present in daily life as a message of hope in the midst of discouragement, of life in the midst of violent and unjust deaths. this is what believing in the child born of Mary means."

Gustavo Gutiérrez, O.P., Sharing the Word through the Liturgical Year