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Sometimes when we look at the suffering in the world an understandable response is to ask, “Why?” Why is there all this suffering and pain? I could give a long-winded theological response to that question and many have but it doesn’t really help. It doesn't take away the hurt and pain. For me, the most important thing isn’t to explain why suffering exists – there is suffering and we all know there is! But what really matters is what God has done and is doing about it. And the answer to that begins with Christmas.

It is at Christmas that God enters into our world with all its suffering. It is because of Christmas that when I face suffering, my own or others, I know I am not alone. It is because of Christmas I know that when I reach out to touch and pray for a dying person I know I am not only sharing the love and compassion of Christ but I am also reaching out to Jesus who is already present with that dying person.

As always, Bono, the singer of the rock band U2, shows a great turn of phrase…

“a child born in straw poverty, in shit and straw … a child …the poetry … unknowable love, unknowable power, describes itself as the most vulnerable… love , needs to find form, intimacy needs to be whispered. To me it makes sense. It’s actually logical. It’s pure logic. Love has to become an action or something concrete. It would have to happen. There must be an incarnation. Love must be made flesh.”

This Christmas remember Jesus, love made flesh, arriving as an answer to human suffering. Reach out with him to those around you who are suffering and know his presence, his love and grace, his peace and joy.