Loved into Christmas | Christmas Voices of Hope

Sr. Kathryn J. Hermes, FSP

Thursday, December 25, 2025

Photo of three smiling people crowded in front of a wall.

Sr. Kathryn with her parents. Photo used with permission.

Welcome to Christmas, and to our series, "Christmas Voices of Hope: Stories and Reflections for the Season." This time to celebrate the birth of Christ is full of stories, experiences, and traditions that come to define what the season means for each of us.

To inspire you with hope during this month of waiting and rejoicing, we have invited friends and members of the Salt + Light Media family to share how their Advent and Christmas traditions have marked their own journey, and that of their communities.

Today's reflection was written by Sr. Kathryn J. Hermes, FSP, who reminds us that many encounter the newborn Christ with a mixture of grief and hope.

Christmas is finally here! Everyone reading this has been calculating for weeks: Do I have all my presents purchased? Are they all wrapped? Is the dinner menu created? Guests invited? Tree? Decorations? Get the stable out? What is the Mass schedule?

Our experience of Christmas is at some level an attempt to bring order out of chaos, to get every gift wrapped and every bow tied, to plan the perfect surprise for those extra special people in our lives.

To be able finally on Christmas Eve to sit down with a sigh: “We’re here. We made it. Let the joy begin.”

This time last year, however, I was spending time with Mom, who had struggled with Alzheimer’s for many years and whose journey was nearing its end. It had become clear that this Christmas was to be about more than gifts. As the family gathered, we teased Mom that she might crash Jesus’ birthday party in heaven.

On Christmas Day, however, we each received a “gift” from her, as we heard her voice for the first time in years, now barely a whisper, one last time. She said something to each of us when we were alone with her that day: “I love you.” “Thank you.” A mother’s love that would be remembered more than any other gift.

I entered her room very early the day after Christmas. Her eyes wide open and bright, she seemed to be quietly conversing with someone as she looked at the ceiling. I clearly heard her say, “Okay.” She nodded her head, “yes.” She turned on her side and she never spoke again. For four more days we watched together for the coming of her Saviour. I believe God knew that we needed her just a few days more, and Mom quietly said, “yes.” She was willing to wait if we needed her.

On the very first Christmas, God came — wild and uninvited — into a world not quite ready to receive him with open arms. He entered into the story of a little family, to a young virgin and her husband who were asked to say yes in the dark.

Mary and Joseph must have talked quietly and often about what they wanted their life together to be. All these plans and dreams were now broken open into something unknown and uncontrollable: God was here.

God-with-us, Immanuel, the Son of God, was to become a part of their family, and a member of the human race.

This Christmas, I have a deeper sense of what it means that Jesus came to us and that he remains with us, ever and forever, just as I have realized clearly that Mom is still with us, still loving us. What is beyond sight, is now very near.

When you watch someone take their last breath at Christmas, you know there is nothing more powerful and true than the child of Bethlehem, the One for whom we are waiting, who is himself everything that we really need.

If you are grieving this Christmas, struggling with the loss of someone you love, know that in some mysterious way only God can know, they have been loved into Christmas...forever.