Lord Jesus, Christmas is coming again.
The season that celebrates the birth of a Child can be one of the most beautiful times of the year.
And when you are longing for a child, it can also hurt terribly.
Everywhere we look there are children.
Children waiting to see Santa.
Children singing in Christmas programs.
Children dressed for Christmas Mass.
Children decorating cookies.
Children opening presents.
Children falling asleep beneath blankets while parents quietly prepare Christmas morning.
Families gather.
Grandparents hold babies.
Pregnancy announcements appear inside Christmas cards.
Someone unwraps a gift that says:
“Grandma.”
Someone else announces:
“Baby coming next year.”
And we smile.
We congratulate.
We mean it.
But somewhere inside, another thought whispers:
I thought we would have a baby by this Christmas too.
Lord, You know how many Christmases we have counted this way.
Maybe last Christmas we thought:
Surely by next year.
Surely there will be a pregnancy.
Surely there will be an adoption match.
Surely there will be a baby in the family photograph.
Surely there will be a stocking with another name.
And now another Christmas has arrived.
The stocking is still missing.
The crib is still empty.
The telephone has still not brought the news we hoped for.
And we are still waiting.
Jesus, this is Your birthday, and we do not want our grief to keep us from celebrating You.
But please do not ask us to pretend the grief is not there.
You came into the world as a baby.
That mystery touches the exact place that hurts.
Mary carried You.
Joseph protected You.
You were born.
You cried.
You were wrapped in swaddling clothes.
Mary held You against her body.
Joseph looked down upon the Child entrusted to him.
And every Nativity scene places before us the image we desperately want:
a mother, a father, and a baby.
Holy Family, sometimes looking at you hurts.
Please do not be offended by that.
Come closer.
Mary, when I look at you holding Jesus and my arms ache, let me bring that ache to you rather than turning away.
Joseph, when a man looks at you protecting the Christ Child and wonders whether he will ever become a father, stay beside him.
Jesus, when we look at You in the manger and think about the baby who is not in our home, receive the tears that may come.
Lord, bless the Christmas traditions we imagined sharing with a child.
The ornament we wanted to buy.
The Christmas pajamas.
The children’s books.
The cookies.
The Advent calendar.
The little shoes at Christmas Mass.
The toys assembled late at night.
The carrots left for reindeer.
The excitement on Christmas morning.
The tiny hands placing an ornament too low on the tree.
The child standing before the Nativity while we explain:
“That’s Baby Jesus.”
We wanted those ordinary things.
We still do.
If it is Your holy will, please let us experience them someday.
Lord, if conception is possible, please bring healing and new life.
Perhaps next Christmas there will be a baby in our arms.
Perhaps there will be a child growing beneath a mother’s heart.
Perhaps there will be an ultrasound picture tucked inside a Christmas card.
Perhaps there will finally be another stocking hanging beside ours.
We ask You for that miracle.
And if adoption is our path, Lord, guide it.
Somewhere this Christmas there may be a mother facing an unexpected pregnancy.
A father who is frightened.
A child in foster care.
A family in crisis.
We will not pray for another person’s suffering so that our longing can be answered.
Instead, we pray for their good.
Protect them.
Provide for them.
If a mother can safely parent and desires to do so, give her everything she needs.
If adoption is freely and carefully chosen, guide every person involved.
And if someday a child’s story is meant to become joined to ours, prepare us for one another.
Lord, help us through family gatherings.
Someone may ask:
“Any baby news yet?”
They may mean no harm.
But the words may hurt.
Someone may tell us to relax.
Someone may suggest another treatment.
Someone may tell us about a friend who adopted and immediately became pregnant.
Someone may say:
“It’ll happen when it’s meant to happen.”
Give us patience.
Give us permission to answer simply.
Give us permission to change the subject.
Give us permission to step outside for a moment if we need to breathe.
And protect our hearts from bitterness toward people who simply do not understand.
Lord, if there are children already in our extended family, help us love them freely.
Let us get down on the floor and play.
Let us read the Christmas story.
Let us admire the new toys.
Let us hold the baby.
Let us laugh.
And if later, driving home, we cry because we wanted to buckle our own child into the back seat, sit with us there too.
Joy and sorrow can exist together.
One does not make the other false.
Jesus, there may be an empty room in our house this Christmas.
Perhaps we imagined a crib there by now.
Enter that room.
Let the emptiness become a place where You meet us.
And if there is a tiny gift, ornament, blanket, or keepsake we bought in hope, bless it.
We are not foolish for hoping.
Advent itself teaches us to wait.
For centuries Your people waited for the Messiah.
Generation after generation prayed for the promise.
And then, in the fullness of time, You came.
Quietly.
Hidden within Mary.
Almost unnoticed by the world.
Lord, our waiting is not the same as Israel’s waiting for the Messiah, and we know that Advent does not guarantee that our particular prayer will be answered in the way we desire.
But Advent can still teach us something:
waiting and abandonment are not the same thing.
You can be present even when fulfillment has not yet come.
So this Christmas, help us celebrate the Child who has come while we continue longing for the child who has not.
Let us go to Mass.
Let us hear the Gospel.
Let us kneel before the manger.
Let us receive You in the Eucharist.
And when we receive Your Body, remind us that the Jesus whom Mary once held in Bethlehem comes astonishingly close to us still.
Blessed Fulton Sheen, who loved the Eucharistic Christ, intercede for us this Christmas.
Pray for the miracle we desire.
Our Lady of Guadalupe, who carried Jesus through an Advent of your own, cover us beneath your mantle.
St. Joseph, protect our marriage and our home.
Mary, teach us how to wait without allowing waiting to consume everything beautiful around us.
And Holy Family, come home with us from Christmas Mass.
Sit at our table.
Stand beside our tree.
Enter our traditions.
Bless the empty chair.
Bless the empty room.
Bless the empty arms.
And make our home holy even before it becomes full.
Lord Jesus, perhaps next Christmas everything will be different.
Perhaps not.
We cannot know.
So keep us from spending this Christmas entirely inside an imagined future.
There is grace here too.
There are people to love now.
There are memories to make now.
There is worship to offer now.
There is a Savior to adore now.
And if tears fall beside the manger, let them become part of our gift to You.
The shepherds brought what they had.
The Magi brought what they had.
We bring what we have:
Our marriage.
Our hope.
Our disappointment.
Our empty arms.
Our longing.
Our love.
And one prayer we have carried through another year:
Jesus, if it is Your will, please let there be a child with us next Christmas.
Until then, let the Christ Child fill this home with His presence.
And when we look at the manger, remind us:
Christmas began with a family making room for God in circumstances they never expected.
Teach us to do the same.
Come, Lord Jesus.
Come into our waiting.
Come into our marriage.
Come into our home.
Come into the room prepared for a child.
Come into the place that aches.
And whether our prayer is answered tomorrow or much later, never let our longing for a baby make us miss the Baby of Bethlehem who has already come searching for us.
Always remember Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
Holy Family! Help us to be a holy family and pray for us!
Amen.