There are so many memories. Like pictures forever printed in our minds and hearts: Carols, twinkling lights on freshly cut evergreens, tables laden with good food, stockings stuffed with goodies, the giving and receiving of gifts from friends, family and coworkers. All of these are part of the spirit of Christmas for most of us.

As we prepare for Christmas 2008 the signs are quite clear that this Holiday Season will be quite different for most of us. The economic crisis, not only in this country but throughout the world, has stirred up in us many fears, worries, uncertainties and anxieties. Every year we try to remember that Christmas is a celebration of the coming of God's Incarnate Love in a poor infant. Perhaps as never before, this year we have the opportunity to reframe our pictures, to purify our memories, so that we enter deeply into the core mystery of Christmas: God comes to us poor in our own poverty.

Year after year, this season provides us with the opportunity to give to others; to be more generous to those who are poor and in need. We try to deepen our commitment to live in solidarity with the poor of the earth by giving of our abundance, sharing of our surplus with those less fortunate than ourselves. But as we prepare for Christmas 2008, there is a deeper recognition that all of us --- rich, middle class, poor --- have been affected by the financial crisis wreaking havoc in the world.

We are being challenged to adopt a new frame of mind, a new understanding of Christmas, in which there is a deeper solidarity among us all.

The point of this solidarity is the poor infant who lies in a manger. In him the rich and the poor come together: kings and paupers; wise men and shepherds come to behold the gift that is given to them. And to us. All of us. Our solidarity with one another rests in this gift of God who comes poor to all of us.

This gift, God's Incarnate Love in a manger, is the only thing that rich and poor can never lose. This gift belongs to the strong and the weak, the clever and the simple. It never diminishes in value. This Love never dries up. It does not fluctuate, going up and down like Wall Street and other financial markets throughout the world. This treasure cannot be taken from any of us. In this alone is our security. Love become poor is our safety.

In these worrisome times we are reminded each day that there is no quick fix for the current economic crisis. The financial downturn will be with us and affect all of us for much longer than we might like. We must be prepared to live more simply, indeed more humbly on the world scene, than at previous times in our history. We must ready ourselves for the long haul.

For most of us, we behold and adore the poor infant during the season of Christmas. But this is only the beginning. We are to follow the poor Christ through every season of his life, even to the point where the man Jesus of Nazareth has no place to lay his head. Even animals have a place to rest. But the Jesus, Son of God and Son of Mary, does not even have a home: A manger at the beginning; no place to rest in his ministry; not even a tomb or a burial place of his own at the end of his life.

My words this Christmas are spoken as we face an economic crisis on a scale most us have not seen in our lifetime. Let us try to remember that it is not shameful to be poor. But it is hard. All of us might take some small comfort in this:

Our security, our stability, our permanence as a people does not rest in the economy of our nation, or in our national identity. Our permanence, our identity, is to be found in our shared faith in Jesus Christ and in his Gospel. He came to bring glad tidings to us in our weakness and poverty. He comes to us as a poor and vulnerable infant. This Christmas he enters our lives at our most vulnerable point.

This alone is the reason for the heart to hope this Christmas.