Christmas means that God is with us right in the midst of our often messy lives and our troubled world — that God is right in the midst of whatever is happening to us, not outside it. Christmas says that God holds us in our weakness and our sin — gently embraces us in our pain and sorrow, our confusion and our feelings of inadequacy.
— Excerpt from Father Michael G. Ryan’s Christmas Day homily, delivered to the congregants and worshippers at St. James Cathedral in Seattle.