One of the great dreams of many people today is to own a home. Many of us here in our community are happy that we have our own home. It makes one feel proud. The greatest crisis that we have in our society today is the amount of people who are homeless and especially the amount of children who are homeless, especially at Christmas time. One often wonders what is the problem, our economy is booming but yet homelessness is on the increase. There is a danger of confusing two concepts: house and home. Story of a family carrying their belongings and a man says to one of the little girls: ‘you poor little girl you have no home to go too’  ‘we have’ said the young girl ‘we have just no place to put it’. There are a lot of houses in our country, but yet every year the amount of broken homes is on the increase. Something is wrong, were missing something. To create home we need faith, love and commitment and this will ultimately bring us joy and happiness. What we celebrate at Christmas is the Incarnation of Christ, Christ assuming human nature or to put in more simplistic words, Christ becomes a person like each and everyone of us; he wants to make his home with us. What kind of home does Christ want? No doubt at the heart of every home we have the woman, today we see the example of two women.

• Faith: ‘Blessed is she who…’ Their faith led them to hear and obey the voice of God. What role does God play in my life? A grandmother told me this week that her grandson was speaking about Christmas and said that Christ comes to live with us, but my Daddy does not believe in Christ, but I do, and that’s it.
• It was Mary’s love that moved her to visit her cousin Elizabeth. In the gospel today Mary wanted to share her joy and her good news with her cousin Elizabeth, and that is why she went in haste. She knew Elizabeth would rejoice with her. She was to bear Gods son and such a joy must be shared. When Elizabeth heard the news she was filled with the spirit of God. The infectious joy caused the child in her womb to leap for joy also. Many generations before Mary and Elizabeth had looked forward to the deliverance of Israel by the Messiah, and this generation would see him and generations to come would rejoice too, joy would renew the world.
• Joy: Joy at the closeness of Christ. Let us open our hearts to experience this joy and then we can avoid all the stress and anxiety that these days bring for so many people.

What kind of home will I give to Christ this Christmas?