{"id":1639,"date":"2015-12-29T13:46:04","date_gmt":"2015-12-29T18:46:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/christmas-hope\/"},"modified":"2015-12-29T13:46:04","modified_gmt":"2015-12-29T18:46:04","slug":"christmas-hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/christmas-hope\/","title":{"rendered":"Christmas Hope"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>By Sr. Spero<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The Christmas message can seem like a paradox. On one level, it\u2019s the story of a young pregnant girl who is forced by her government to travel many miles in difficult and crowded conditions, and then give birth in the only shelter available\u2014with the animals. It is also the story of great splendor\u2014angels appearing on a hillside in all their radiance and glory, proclaiming tidings of great joy. The first sounds pretty grim, the second so extraordinary it is beyond description.<\/p>\n<p>Which is real\u2014the difficulty or the splendor?<\/p>\n<p>The Christmas message is both. \u201cA light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it.\u201d Darkness is real, but light wins. The angels are singing through the darkness, piercing it with light. The canticle for Lauds during the Christmas season is from Jeremiah 31 and contains these verses: \u201cFor the Lord will ransom Jacob and redeem them from the hand of those stronger than they;\u201d and \u201cI will turn their mourning into gladness; I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Christmas hope does not deny evil.\u00a0 During the Christmas season, we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Innocents, the slaughter of young children who became martyrs for the sake of Christ. We can celebrate this event because we know that evil is overcome, and the message of the angels is true. No matter what the outward circumstances, we have heard \u201ctidings of great joy.\u201d<\/p>\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/www.communityofjesus.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Mary-and-Innocents-e1451414524392.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-5625835\" src=\"http:\/\/www.communityofjesus.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Mary-and-Innocents-e1451414524392-169x300.jpg\" alt=\"Bronze sculpture by Daphne du Barry, depicting Mary and innocents\" width=\"169\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Bronze sculpture by Daphne du Barry, depicting Mary and innocents<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>Follow us<\/strong><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/communityofjesus.org\">https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/communityofjesus.org<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/TheCommunityOfJesus\/~4\/Op2FXPdudnk\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Sr. Spero The Christmas message can seem like a paradox. On one level, it\u2019s the story of a young pregnant girl who is forced by her government to travel many miles in difficult and crowded conditions, and then give &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/christmas-hope\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-paraclete-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1639\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}