Christmas 2025
Fr. Dwight Campbell
12/25/2025
Homily Christmas 2025
Fr. Dwight P. Campbell, S.T.D., J.D.
“For a child is born to us, a son is given us; upon his shoulder dominion rests. They name him Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever, Prince of Peace. His dominion is vast and forever peaceful, from David’s throne, and over his kingdom, … both now an forever.”
The Birth of Jesus Christ, which we celebrate today, is part of a beautiful love story – about God’s infinite love for us (and how we should love Him in return).
The First Epistle of St. John sums up well this notion: “God’s love was revealed in our midst in this way: He sent His only Son into the world that we might have life through Him” (1 Jn. 4:9).
Yes, as St. John tells us in his Gospel: “God so loved the world” that He sent His Only-Begotten Son to offer His life for us who are sinners; to die that we might live – the greatest act of love that ever was, and ever will be.
Archbishop Fulton Sheen points out that “every other person who ever came into this world came into it to live. [Jesus] came into it to die.”
The wood of the manger in Bethlehem in which Jesus was placed on the night of His Birth, foreshadowed the wood of the Cross on which He would allow Himself to be nailed as the Lamb of Sacrifice – out of love for us.
In a sermon, St. Augustine puts it beautifully:
“You would have suffered eternal death, had He not been born in time.
Never would you have been freed from sinful flesh, had not He taken on Himself the likeness of sinful flesh. …
You would never have returned to life, had He not shared your death.
You would have been lost if he had not hastened to your aid.
You would have perished, had He not come.”
Pope St. Leo the Great says, “let us give thanks to God the Father, … because in His great love for us He took pity on us, and when we were dead in our sins He brought us to life with Christ.”
Jesus took flesh from His Mother, Mary; He was born of her and then offered His life on the Cross – in order to win our hearts for God.
The first of those whose heart was won was that of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Her “Fiat” at the Annunciation – “Let it be done to me according to your word” – reveals the immensity of her love for God.
The rest of her life was an ongoing renewal of her Fiat, of her perfect obedience, in faith, to the will of God.
Mary’s Heart was always filled with a deep and abiding joy, because her Heart’s gaze was always fixed on her beloved Son, Jesus – after she conceived Him on Annunciation day, as she carried Him in her immaculate womb, after she gave birth to Him, throughout His public life, and then on Calvary, as she united herself with her Son’s offering, for our sins.
This is precisely why she is our perfect model in following Christ.
May we come to know, and experience ourselves, Mary’s profound joy – the joy of contemplating Jesus, in faith, in our hearts, and of welcoming the Lord into our lives.
By doing so may we become signs and witnesses of His love to others, that they too may come to know Jesus, to contemplate Him, to open their hearts to Him – and thereby experience that same joy that can only be found in Christ, Our Lord, whose glorious Birth from the Blessed Virgin Mary we celebrate today.