The eve of St. Nicholas. A joyful hint of Christmas. The first reading from today’s Mass speaks of the great mountain of the Lord, in which He will destroy the “veil that veils the people, the web woven over the nations: God will destroy death forever… wiping away the tears from our faces.” This reading gives us another hint: of our ultimate destiny to live forever in the embrace of Love.

In the Gospel, Jesus heals the many wounded people: wounds of being paralyzed, blind, mute, sick. He frees them with his breath of healing. We ALL are in need of healing but we must approach Jesus just as we ARE, not as we should be or would like to be. He wants us, wounds and all, for it is through our wounds that we encounter Christ.

It all begins in SELF ACCEPTANCE: to approach God in our wounds and sins, without any fear whatsoever. Our true self is the one created by God in His image and likeness; our false self is the one rooted in ego and self created. We have to unVEIL the destructive false self that we have created in our loneliness and inner alienation and allow it to die, revealing the true self created by God, loved by God. Just be yourself…

St. Nick is the saint of children and lost innocence, which means he is the saint for us all. The gift he gives cannot be wrapped, it can only be discovered, deep within our beings: Christ.