TLDR: The weeks of preparation for Christmas have left us a bit tired and energy is low, attendance is thin, and our homes and public spaces appear so empty. But the Christmas story is not only a past event. It is a present reality and a future hope. Read on for more.
The Sunday after Christmas has long been called a “Low Sunday” in the Church. Attendance is usually thin, energy is low, and the excitement of Christmas has faded. After weeks of preparation, cleaning, decorating, cooking, traveling, and hosting we are often left not with joy, but with exhaustion and a strange sense of letdown. Part of this post-Christmas emptiness comes from the story itself. After the birth of Jesus, the Gospels grow quiet. With the exception of a brief episode when Jesus is twelve years old, we know almost nothing about his life until he begins his public ministry. For nearly three decades, the Son of God lives in obscurity.
That silence has always made people uneasy. Over the centuries, many tried to fill in the gaps. By the fourth century, stories circulated describing a miraculous child Jesus who brings clay birds to life, heals the sick with a look, travels across continents, and performs dramatic wonders long before adulthood. These stories were imaginative and fascinating, but the Church ultimately rejected them. Instead, the Church chose the restraint of the canonical Gospels. And in doing so, it affirmed something deeply countercultural: that most of Jesus’ life was ordinary, hidden, and unremarkable by the world’s standards. Jesus did not seek recognition. He did not perform public miracles as a child. He did not write books or gather followers in his youth. He lived quietly, growing, working, learning, waiting. In an age obsessed with visibility this is revolutionary.
What makes this hidden life so comforting is not that Jesus was unknown, but that he was known, fully known, by God. God was with Jesus as a child and young man just as surely as God was with him during his public ministry. God was present in the workshop, in family life, in friendships, and in confusing and clear moments alike. Jesus’ obscurity was never a sign of God’s absence. And that is good news for us. Most of us live quiet lives. We are not famous. We will not be remembered by history. In fact, neither Walter Issacson nor David McCullough will insist on writing our biographies. Ken Burns will not film the documentary of our lives. In time, the world will move on without us. The irony is that despite living in an age of constant communication and digital memory, we are no more permanent than those who lived two thousand years ago. They were here one day and gone the next, and we know almost nothing about them. It will be likewise with us, yet our lives are not a mystery to God.
Just as God saw Jesus in those quiet years, God sees us in ours. God is present in the routines of our days, in our worries and frustrations, in our relationships and responsibilities. God is with us as we care for our children, comfort family members with mental illness, grieve our losses, struggle with regret, wrestle with forgiveness, and search for meaning in ordinary work and ordinary days. The Gospel proclaims that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. In Christ, God does not merely visit humanity, God abides with us. Through the resurrection, Christ becomes Emmanuel in the fullest sense: God with us, even now. So if Christmas feels over too quickly, if the glow has faded and exhaustion has set in, take heart. Emmanuel has not left. God is present not only in moments of celebration, but also in the quiet aftermath, in the ordinary, hidden, and seemingly insignificant parts of life.
The Christmas story is not only a past event. It is a present reality and a future hope. God has come. God is here. And God will come again. That is the source of our hope. And that is the quiet joy of our faith.
Now, to end this message, I want to acknowledge that for many of us this has been a very difficult year, made much worse by the death of our beloved Cathy LeJeune. I am praying for all of you this week. May our Lord bring joy into your life as we end 2025, and may he grant you a very happy, healthy, and prosperous 2026.
Blessings to all, Fr. Roman+
