If we can feel the joy of others as our own it is a sign of our love for them (Divine Love and Wisdom 47) and if we love others then their joy in giving to us could be a joy that we feel when we receive a gift from them. Maybe a person who has trouble receiving happily has the bad habit of listening to self-deprecating thoughts, or perhaps she has herself so well trained to focus on giving that she avoids paying attention to the joy she could feel coming from someone else’s love. If a person has trouble taking delight in another’s expressions of love for him, then how will he sense the Lord’s love for him and delight in the gifts He has to offer? What is Christmas all about if we cannot feel some peace in knowing that the Lord loves us so much that He chose to come to us, born as a little infannt in a simple stable? He was born in order to make Himself accessible to us, born in order to bring us the spiritual freedom that allows us to choose to be wisely loving human beings. The Lord said, “I am come that you might have life and have it more abundantly. Each moment of each day, the Lord come to us to give us the gift of life?
