Celebrations in the Valley: Navigating Christmas with a Heavy Heart

The holiday season is fast approaching, although for many this year, it might be more fitting to say, it’s encroaching – impinging, intruding, barging in, imposing itself. After a year overrun with expansive sorrow, the thought of ‘Christmas cheer’ rings hollow. Even the message of the angel to a group of bewildered shepherds on a hill outside Bethlehem, “I bring you good news of great joy” (Lk 2:10), seems to promise more than we can believe possible. Sorrow Upon Sorrow We’ve navigated sorrowful times during this most recent circuit around the sun. Loved ones have slipped away from us or...