Looking at all the people rummaging through stores to buy expensive gifts and the long lines at grocery stores saddens me. Little by little the holiness of the season is being replaced by secularism; it’s real essence being overpowered by the materialism. How many people are actually celebrating Christmas for the right reasons? How many are preparing a feast in honor of Jesus’ birth and sacrifice?

It is my prayer that Christians all over the world do not succumb to the evils of the world and forget God’s great love this Christmas season.

We approach the feast as our people are facing many changes and challenges in a world that is departing increasingly from traditional concepts, making violence, consumption and possession a new law for this life. Needless to say, the luxury with which we celebrate this feast, the feast of the poverty of Bethlehem, is a clear sign that we, also, have adopted this law in the conduct of our lives. As we are accustomed to exchange gifts in the manner of the kings who visited the Lord Jesus at His birth, let us express our love to the Divine Child, coming to us, by feeding the hungry, visiting the sick, offering a shelter to the homeless and doing whatever we can do.

These are words from the newly elected Patriarch of Antioch in his Pastoral Nativity letter. The full text can be found here: http://www.antiochian.org