Archbishop Rozanski offers reflections, advice on celebrating the Christmas season and entering the new year
The greatest gift we can give to others this Christmas is sharing with them how Jesus transforms our lives, Archbishop Mitchell T. Rozanski said.
“Sometimes that’s done by words. Sometimes it’s just done by the choices that we have,” he said. “I think if we’re able to show to our relatives and friends — perhaps who are struggling with faith — the joy that we have in our hearts because of our Savior, then we can truly bring to them the love that God has for them.”
As the Church prepares to enter into the Christmas season, Archbishop Rozanski offered reflections and advice for the faithful of the archdiocese.
Celebrating Jesus’ birth is a reminder of the great hope we have because of His Incarnation, the archbishop said. We would never expect the savior of the world to come to us as a helpless baby, born in a stable, but that’s how God chose to work.
“We realize that no matter what the circumstances are, God would not let anything stand in the way to bring about our salvation,” he said.
That message can be especially meaningful for people who are having a tough time during the holidays, including those experiencing grief or loneliness. Jesus was born into hard times, too, without a place for Him.
“What a great message of hope that is, particularly for those who are struggling, of God coming into the world,” Archbishop Rozanski said. “No matter if the world accepted or rejected Him, God was not going to prevent salvation from happening.”
While there have been signs of the holiday season everywhere for the past several weeks — Christmas music on the radio, lights and decorations in stores and houses, parties and performances — it can be easy to forget that the liturgical season of Christmas lasts well beyond Dec. 25, the archbishop said. The season lasts all the way through the feast of the baptism of Our Lord (Jan. 11 this year), spanning the celebration of Jesus’ coming to us as an infant through the beginning of His public ministry, when St. John the Baptist baptized Him in the Jordan River.
That full breadth of the season helps us remember why Jesus was born in the first place, Archbishop Rozanski said.
“He came to be born like one of us. He was baptized by John. That began His three years of public ministry and preaching and ultimately led to Calvary, to His death and to His resurrection. So we can see how that all ties together as we celebrate the Christmas season,” he said.
Throughout the busyness that often comes with the season, finding stillness and silence is important to maintain a connection with God, Archbishop Rozanski said. He begins each day with a few minutes of quiet prayer time.
“I really appreciate having that time before the Blessed Sacrament — being able to pray, to be quiet, to recollect myself, and then to ask God for strength to help me throughout the day,” he said.
It’s also a time to intentionally reach out to others, especially those who are less fortunate, he said. Many parishes and community organizations offer opportunities to be generous with our time and money at Christmas.
“Being able to reach out to them with some sort of help, really to me captures the spirit of the Christmas giving season,” Archbishop Rozanski said.
The turn of the year
The worldwide Church will conclude the Jubilee Year of Hope on Jan. 6, the feast of the Epiphany. The faithful around the Archdiocese of St. Louis were “a beacon of hope and light” for Archbishop Rozanski throughout the 2025 Jubilee year, he said, including those who took time to visit pilgrimage sites and focus on works of mercy.
“When I see the amount of service that takes place in our food pantries, in our soup kitchens, of reaching out to the poor in so many ways, it’s very evident in all of our parishes that there is that ministry that allows us to bring the presence of Jesus perhaps to those who have lost hope — we are those signs of hope,” he said.
The Archdiocese of St. Louis is preparing to enter another special year in 2026: the bicentennial of the archdiocese, which was established as the Diocese of St. Louis in 1826 by Pope Leo XII. The archdiocese will mark the year with the theme “Rejoicing in God’s radiant light. A legacy of faith. A future of hope.”
Archbishop Rozanski’s hope is that the people of the archdiocese will look back on the past 200 years with gratitude for those who have gone before us and built up the Church in our region, including St. Rose Philippine Duchesne, bishops, religious communities, founders of hospitals and schools and more.
“That’s just such a rich history of bringing Christ to others. So in our bicentennial year, I hope that we can build on that rich history in bringing the light of Christ to others in so many ways, to say that we’re grateful for what has been, but we’re grateful for what God continues to do for us as the Church of St. Louis,” he said.
The archbishop proposed a simple new year’s resolution for all: Adopt a sense of truly being thankful.
“Because if we’re thankful, then we have hearts that are truly open to God’s Spirit,” he said. “And a thankful person is one who always realizes how good God is to him or to her.”
