On December 24th, 1978, three years before he was killed, he writes:

This is the Christian’s joy: I know that I am a thought in God, no matter how insignificant I may be – the most abandoned of beings, one no one thinks of. Today, when we think of Christmas gifts, how many outcasts no one thinks of! Think to yourselves, you that are outcasts, you that feel you are nothing in history: “I know that I am a thought in God.”

Would that my voice might reach the imprisoned like a ray of light, of Christmas hope – and might it say also to you, the sick, the elderly in the home for the aged, the hospital patients, you that live in shacks and shantytowns, you coffee harvesters trying to garner your only wage for the whole year, you that are tortured: God’s eternal purpose has thought of all of you. He loves you, and, like Mary, incarnates that thought in his womb.

No one can celebrate a genuine Christmas without being truly poor. The self-sufficient, the proud, those who, because they have everything, look down on others, those who have no need even of God – for them there will be no Christmas. Only the poor, the hungry, those who need someone to come on their behalf, will have that someone. That someone is God, Emmanuel, God-with-us. Without poverty of spirit there can be no abundance of God.

This Christmas season, take the time to remind yourself over and over again, why you need God. This is one of nine reflections that are accompanied by music for the S+L Radio show program's Saturday, December 26th edition. This regular weekly program airs Saturdays at 10 pm ET/7 pm ET on the Catholic Channel, Sirius Satellite Radio 159 and XM Radio 117. For podcasts, or for more information on S+L Radio, visit HERE.