“the danger was that some Christians were denying the fullness of Jesus's humanity and the fullness of his divinity and so the Church confessed Mary as Mother of God in order to safeguard the mystery of the Incarnation”

“Let's remember the glorious mother raising her child to help us all be free and then spend our time, our energy, our prayers, our actions working to help all people be free”

“The blessings of God can come to us in packagings that may seem like disappointments and misfortune but if we rely on the Holy Spirit we will not pray those packages away. We will not ship them away and will not miss the blessings of God.”

“We find that word fiat another place in the bible. Genesis chapter 1, verse 3...God said 'fiat lux.' 'Let there be light and there was light.' And so we see that the Daughter of God becomes the Mother of God. And when she declares her fiat 'let it be done,' light comes into the world again.”

“But efficiency is not God's goal. Love, love is God's goal. And God somehow knows that, that somehow we need to play a part in our own salvation not because God needs us to but because we need it. It's part of the way that we're saved.”

“Before you set out you have a destination in mind. And so we are on a journey and the ultimate destination of this journey is the same as our origin, our original origin, which is God. So God is our ultimate destination.”

“So today as we remember the message of the shepherds and consider who the messengers of peace are in our communities, perhaps we might choose a message of peace for ourselves this new year that we can both keep in our hearts and live into for the next 365 days”

“I pray through the intercession of Mary, Mother of God, may God change all stumbling blocks in our way into stepping stones leading us from one point of Victory unto another until we come to our Heavenly inheritance through Christ Our Lord”

“We don't worship Mary but we honor her because of her role in salvation. She said 'yes' to God's plan. God could have saved the world any way God wanted to. God is God but God chose to give us...our Savior, his son, our blessed Jesus, through the gift of woman.”

“And if we know our name, child of God, daughter and son of the Most High, then like Mary we can find that fortitude of the Holy Spirit, that courage that comes from God's grace, to simply say 'yes, yes Lord. However this may be let it be according to your word, to your will'”

“What astonished them was that the family looked just like theirs. And this led to questions in their hearts: if this is true then could it be possible, could it be that an ordinary family like mine could bring about the manifestation of God? Could bring about a new era of peace in the world?”

“Luke doesn’t tell us what became of the shepherds nor about what happened to the people who were astonished at what the shepherds had to say. Was it just a one-day wonder and life continued afterwards as if nothing had happened?”

“Being the mother of God did not insulate her from the challenges of this life. Similarly, being a Christian will not insulate any of us from the challenges of this life.”

“Our Lady did not keep that blessing to herself...that love could not be contained in one space. The message had to spread to the shepherds...they carry that love to other people so that the other people also receive the same blessing as they did.”

“Being blessed and being a blessing to others serves God's people”

“May Mary, our mother, continue to be a source of comfort and inspiration to you and like Mary bring the love of Jesus into the world however you can”

“What can we learn from God's action of choosing a woman whom we in our world we refer to as a 'nobody' to carry in her womb Jesus, God's loving son?”

“let us always remember we walk by faith and not by sight and we have such glorious witnesses as our mother Mary to show us what it means to put one foot in front of the other, trusting her son, trusting our God to always do what is right and just for us”

“Mary offered her life in service to God but she also offered her life in service to us”