Dear Friend of Clear Creek Abbey,
From all eternity the Word of God, which is the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, proceeds from the Father as His beloved Son in the loving breath, the Ghost, the Divine Spirit, of God common to both Father and Son. Holy Scripture teaches us these great things that surpass our understanding but which enlighten and charm our souls, especially at Christmas. And there is more—much more—because the Son, the Word, somehow, by some manner that God alone could contrive, was made small, a Child, an abridged version, an abbreviated Word, so small that He could fit into a Manger-Crib in an obscure town of Palestine. 
And this diminutive Word Jesus, came down from Heaven for us. In view of that incomparable event, what else on this earth could really matter?
For many Christians, Jews, and other fellow citizens, the political, economic, and cultural landscape of the United States of America is looking better these days. Despite the many threats that continue to overshadow the world at large, a cautious optimism has appeared and nourishes a certain hope for better days. There is nothing wrong with that. Without hope, how could the human race even exist? Our surest refuge, however, is never with princes or presidents (however promising), but with the Word that ever transforms all things, with the One, who, when grown to manhood and having been plunged into the suffering of the Passion would say, “Behold, I make all things new” (Rev 21:5).
We monks of Clear Creek, as we celebrate now and through most of the coming year the Silver Jubilee of our foundation in Oklahoma, extend to all our friends—known or even unknown to us—a fervent wish of Blessed and Merry Christmas, along with a Happy New Year of God’s grace. May the tiny Word of God coming to Bethlehem, the Child who from the crib rules the Heavens, be born again and grow in our hearts. I leave you with this quote from a student of Saint Bernard, the Cistercian Abbot Guerric of Igny:
Is it not astonishing that the Word of God should have abbreviated all his words to us when He willed to be abbreviated Himself and made insignificant, so to speak, that He somehow contracted His immeasurable greatness and entered the confines of a mother’s womb, and that He who holds the world in his hands allowed himself to be laid in a crib?
br. Philip Anderson, abbot
