Bishop Strickland: Christmastide calls us to make a radical choice for Christ over the world

Editor’s note: The following essay was originally published on Bishop Joseph Strickland’s Substack on January 5, 2025, and can be found HERE.

(LifeSiteNews) — Dear disciples in Christ,

As a new year dawns, let us awaken and not grow complacent, and let us continue the season of Christmas, sometimes called Christmastide. This season should be unto us as a tide of grace calling us to repent of our sins and to make the most critical choice of our lives – “Do we belong to Christ or to the world?”

The words of Christ from the Gospel according to St. John make it clear that we have a monumental choice to make:

If the world hates you, know ye, that it hath hated me before you. If you had been of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember my word that I said to you: The servant is not greater than his master. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for my name’s sake: because they know not him who sent me. If I had not come, and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. — (John 15:18-22)

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Many in today’s world and in today’s Church would balk at these stark words of Christ. They would decry any mention of these words and would complain, “but it’s Christmas.” I propose that these words of Christ should be precisely what we focus on during Christmastide.

The liturgy of the octave is replete with the blood of martyrs, hated by the world because they loved Christ. St. Stephen (the protomartyr), the Holy Innocents, and St. John the Evangelist display their true discipleship in their death for Christ. These martyrs remind us that the choice to stand with Christ at the foot of His Cross is always the choice of His true disciples.

At the foot of His Cross, we find the red line of division between this world and the kingdom of His Father. We should remember that the loneliness we may feel is only an illusion, for to stand at His Cross is to stand in His heart, His Sacred Heart of truth.

Many in the Church today find themselves hated by the world and hated by the worldly Church that seeks to blunt the call to repentance. This hatred is hurled at those who love ancient rites of worship and reject the worldly false worship that is not focused on God. This hatred is used to attack those who defend the sanctity of life and to thrust them into prison because they dare to speak out for life. This hatred is used to attempt to cancel those who speak the truth and who seek to guard the Deposit of Faith without regard for the fact that truth cannot be changed to suit the whims of the world.

Christ’s words remind us that if we are His true disciples, we do not belong to the world. We must all ask ourselves, “To whom do I belong?” If, when honestly examining our hearts, we are forced to acknowledge that we are too cozy with the world, we must resolve to repent and turn again to Christ. Now is not the time for complacency; now is the time to respond with a resounding “Thy will be done” when we encounter the hatred of the world.

These days of Christmastide are an opportunity to awaken more fully to Christ and humbly acknowledge our sins and failings that dampen our fervor. These words from a Christmas sermon given by Pope St. Leo the Great in the 5th century bring into focus the grave importance of this season of grace:

Christian, acknowledge your dignity, and becoming a partner in the Divine nature, refuse to return to the old baseness by degenerate conduct. Remember the Head and the Body of which you are a member. Recollect that you were rescued from the power of darkness and brought out into God’s light and kingdom.

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We hear much about the dignity of man, but when we disengage from God’s Word, from His commandments and the law, and from true worship, we diminish ourselves. The message of St. Leo the Great reminds us that Christmas is about remembering our true God-given dignity and resolving to repent of anything that diminishes us.

The proclamation of the angels in Bethlehem, In excelsis Deo or “Glory to God in the highest,” should echo through all the days of Christmastide, and we should hear it as a call to shun everything that does not give glory to God. When we seek always to glorify God, the world will hate us, deny us, and even try to destroy us, the same treatment that God’s Divine Son received. But what joy there is in suffering for the sake of Our Lord and following Him to the foot of His Cross!

May the babe of Bethlehem remind us of the wonder that Truth is incarnate among us, and may we use the beginning of this new year as a season of repentance and a time to dwell in the Sacred Heart of Christ more deeply.

Bishop Joseph E. Strickland

Bishop Emeritus