Bishop Robert Vasa

12/22/2000

BEND — My dear people: I want to take this opportunity in the space of my usual column to express to you my most sincere and prayerful hopes that the Christmas Season be for you a time of unparalleled joy. I pray that the grace and peace of God our Father, the love of Christ the King and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit the Sanctifier ever abide with each of you. I pray that the Season of Advent has been a graced filled time of reflection, prayer and spiritual growth.

We now stand on the very threshold of the celebration of the Birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in this millennial year. This is a time when “Silent Night” takes on a most moving and touching significance. One could sing “Silent Night” at any time of the year, but it is really only at Christmas when it is mixed with such marvelous graces that it has the capacity to touch our hearts. The reality is that it is God Himself who reaches into our world and touches our hearts. He did this many times over the centuries as recorded in the Old Testament. He talked to Adam, summoned Noah, called Abraham, appointed Moses, anointed David, sent Isaiah, and, at the end of that era, commissioned John the Baptist. Then in the fullness of time God spoke definitively in the Person of His own, only Begotten Son, Jesus, the Anointed One.

It is this most welcome intrusion of God into our history and into our lives which we celebrate and relive at each Christmas Season. God’s word transmitted through prophets and kings certainly had the power to touch the hearts of the Chosen People. Those Old Testament words continue to touch our hearts, affect our lives and move our actions. The spoken word, however, was not all that God had planned for us. Finally, He sent His Word in person, and that Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. That Word, Jesus, is still with us, in our midst, present among us. God sent His own personal touch into the world, and the world figuratively stood still and silent at the event.

It was a silent night, a holy night, a night divine, a night on which Christ our Savior is born. We enter into that same silent, holy, divine night, that same experience as we celebrate the Christmas event in our Sacred Liturgy. In that celebration, we realize again a fulfillment of the prophesy of Isaiah: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light and upon those who dwell in the shadow of death, Light has shown” (Isaiah 9:2).

Jesus is our Light. Jesus is our Savior. Jesus is our Redeemer. He sets a literal foot into our world, and God dwells among us. On this Silent Night, let us make certain that we too stop in silence and experience what the shepherds heard and felt. May we, in silence, hear again the Angels’ song. May we once again experience and appreciate more fully the wonderful touch of God. May we not only hear God’s word but more importantly meet the personal Word He sends to us.

I pray that God will send into the lives of each of you at this Christmas Season a renewed sense of wonder and awe in His presence. May you experience God in the silence of your hearts.

I also want to take this opportunity to thank you for your warm welcome and your most charitable response to some of the initiatives which I have begun to outline for the Diocese. There are certainly challenges ahead of us, but there is no need for us to be afraid as long as we hold firm to the conviction of God’s goodness and love. Christmas reminds us again of the presence and providence of God, fills our hearts with hopeful joy and strengthens us to face more boldly and courageously the various challenges of life. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to serve as your Bishop, and I continue to look forward with great joy and eager expectation to the many good things we can accomplish together for the sake of God’s Kingdom in the Diocese of Baker.

Asking every good Christmas grace and Christmas blessing of God upon you, I am,

Sincerely yours in Christ Jesus,

Most Rev. Robert F. Vasa

Bishop of Baker