My Dear Parishioners, 

It is better to give than to receive. The receiver benefits, of course, from the generosity of the giver. But the giver is also the beneficiary! The one who gives discovers the joy of forgetting his own interest and putting the interest and the welfare of one lowlier than him first! He discovers that, in disregarding himself in order to stoop down to the level of a lowly individual and lift him up out of his misery and into a new life, he had found new joy, new happiness, and new reason to celebrate. Setting aside his own ambition and his own pleasure, his reward was a hundred times more. That is the secret of true happiness! Happiness is not purchased with money, obrained by power and oppression, possessed by status and honor. Happiness comes thorugh service, and ahppiness comes through self-forgetfulness, and happiness comes throuh seeking the good of others. 

And on the supernatural level, we have the crib and the cross. In the crib at Bethlehem and on the cross on Golgotha, we see our Blessed Lord, Master and Ruler of the entire universe, become a helpless baby, grow up in poverty, stoop down to wash the smelly and dirty feet of His disciples, and ultimately give HIs life as ransom for those who do not deserve any consideration! The greatest becomes the smallest. The most powerful becomes the most helpless. The omnipotent becomes the poorest. The most exalted becomes the meekest. All of this was done by Him and taken on and assumed without a trace of self-interest, so that the lowliest, the meekest, the most wretched, the most unworthy, might be lifted up and renewed and restored. That is the greatest paradox of Christianity and the greatest secret of Christianity: the more you seek your life, themore you will lose it. The more you forsake your life for God and for others, the more you will discover yourself and find yourself!