The Christmas season is upon us! We look to the manger and we see new life—a baby has been born, Jesus the Christ, and so we have reason to hope. God has once more broken into our human story with an invitation: Can we go to the others, bringing the joy and wonder of the Incarnate Christ?

Christmas is rightly a time for joy and celebration. But it’s also a time to take a hard, loving look at our world—the very world through which God again and again makes Godself known. So here’s a question and a challenge: Are we romanticizing that nativity scene? Are we placing the Holy Family high upon a pedestal without looking plainly at the hardship and struggle they themselves had to bear? We’re so quick to sing about Mary and Joseph finding no room at the inn and yet, do we respond in hospitality to those left out in the cold?

Long time listeners of our podcast have heard our crossover episodes of the Jesuit Border Podcast before. Fr. Brian Strassburger, SJ, is the director of Del Camino Jesuit Border Ministries, located in the diocese of Brownsville, Texas. Along with Joe Nolla—a Jesuit regent—he’s wrapped the seventh season of the Jesuit Border Podcast. Today, we’re going to share with you the season finale, which features Bishop Joseph Tyson of the diocese of Yakima, Washington.

This conversation is a helpful one during this Christmas season. It reminds us once more to look to the holy families still on the move today, still pleading for shelter and hospitality—not unlike the Holy Family 2,000 years ago.

Let’s not reduce our God of the universe to a plastic toy in a nativity set we carefully set up once a year. Instead, let’s take up the challenge that Fr. Brian, Joe and Bishop Tyson lay out for us in this episode. Let’s walk with those families still in need today, those families who bear the image and likeness of our same God. Let’s embody a message of hope and welcome.

Listen to more episodes of the Jesuit Border Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-jesuit-border-podcast/id1593208023

Learn more about Del Camino Jesuit Border Ministries: https://www.jesuitscentralsouthern.org/our-work/del-camino/