What’s a Good Gift to Give for Christmas?

Helping someone with this, everyday:

God calls you to make definitive choices, and he has a plan for each of you: to discover that plan and to respond to your vocation is to move toward personal fulfilment. God calls each of us to be holy, to live his life, but he has a particular path for each one of us. Some are called to holiness through family life in the sacrament of Marriage. Today, there are those who say that marriage is out of fashion. Is it out of fashion? In a culture of relativism and the ephemeral, many preach the importance of “enjoying” the moment. They say that it is not worth making a life-long commitment, making a definitive decision, “for ever”, because we do not know what tomorrow will bring. I ask you, instead, to be revolutionaries, I ask you to swim against the tide; yes, I am asking you to rebel against this culture that sees everything as temporary and that ultimately believes you are incapable of responsibility, that believes you are incapable of true love. I have confidence in you and I pray for you. Have the courage “to swim against the tide”. And also have the courage to be happy.

That was Pope Francis, in his talk to World Youth Day volunteers as he was headed to the airport in Rio this summer. That countercultural stuff may not fully make all the cover stories, but the radical nature of what he’s pointing to does not take ideological sides. Be configured to Christ. That isn’t Republican or Democrat, but the hope of eternity — love, justice, peace in Christ’s mercy — and the joy beyond anything we earn or deserve from a God beyond all praising.