My Dear Friends in Christ,
As the Bishop of the Diocese of Columbus, I want to wish you and your families a joy-filled and peaceful Christmas and New Year.
During this time of year, families gather together and certainly I hope that you and your families will gather not only for Christmas Mass but gather to worship the Lord.
Throughout the Christmas season, we are beginning a Jubilee Year, which I hope for you is a year filled with grace. We are to be pilgrims of hope. Together, as pilgrims, we journey toward heaven.
We see throughout the world so much strife and conflict. We could think about the situation in Ukraine, Gaza or Syria. Everywhere there’s conflict, even here in our country. But during this time of the year, we remember how a little child, namely the Christ Child, brings us together.
We come together in hope that there is a way forward. We come together in hope that the violence of sin that disturbs our interior peace will be eradicated from our lives, that the Christ Child will draw us together in unity as families and as a people, so that we can move forward in hope.
We have a message to deliver to the world, a joyful message that our God comes to save us, that the Eternal Son went forth from His father’s side and was born in the fullness of time, born under the law, born of the Virgin Mary for the forgiveness of our sins, so that we might have new life, so that we might have hope.
When everything was darkness, the world’s true light — that light which enlightens every man — was coming into the world, and we have been privileged to see this light.
I pray that during this Christmas season, you and your families may shed this light upon our country, upon your neighborhoods, upon all those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, so that coming to this light, we might see things more clearly and see the path forward that leads to peace and lasting joy.
Please know of my prayers for all of you during this holy and joy-filled season. May God bless you at Christmastime and throughout the New Year.
Most Reverend Earl K. Fernandes
Bishop of Columbus