We are just four days after Christmas and the first reading really challenges us. Who among us, in our experience of Christmas, didn't have some difficult experience with someone? It is almost inevitable each year that Christmas time can become a very stressful time. Christmas often gathers us with family and friends. Sometimes the most difficult relationships of our lives come together. Alcohol - intended as a traditional holiday element to add "cheer" - can make everything much worse. A word was said meanly. An old wound was re-opened. Someone was going through a hard time and was coping very badly. We re-discover how much someone really drives us crazy. As a result, we can understand the challenge of the First Letter of John: we want to be in the Light that is Jesus, but at the same time, there is somebody that we really hate or really resent or simply can't stand to be around, and that places us still in the darkness. Christmas is about the Love of God coming into the world, to be Light in the midst of the world's darkness. It is about the invitation to receive the Light into our hearts and to let that Light shine in us as it did in him. This first reading helps us so directly: "whoever claims to abide in him ought to walk just as he walked." To be a disciple of the Light, we have to let go of the darkness and let the Light into our hearts. We have to forgive. We have to love the way He has loved. The only way we can do that is to continue to let the healing grace of Christmas touch us. Innocence is born in poverty and suffers greatly trying to be faithful to His way.