“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to people of goodwill.” 

Every year this verse rings out in our midnight Masses, and every year the world answers with a mixture of awe and skepticism. 

Is this peace real? Is it even possible? Two thousand twenty-five years after Bethlehem, the Catholic heart must hold two truths at once: Christmas does bring peace on earth, and Christmas does not yet bring peace on earth. Both are part of the same mystery. 

Christmas peace is real, incarnate, and indestructible. This peace is not a feeling; it is a Person. 

Because Christ is born, peace is no longer a dream projected onto the future. It is the seed planted in history, growing even now through the sacraments and the charity from every Catholic. 

As the Jubilee year comes to a close, which included in its prayer “spread the joy and peace of our Redeemer throughout the earth,” we have witnessed many longstanding conflicts being settled. 

In August, both Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a peace deal ending 37 years of conflict. 

In October, Israel and Hamas reached the first phase of a peace deal, including a ceasefire after nearly two years of devastation, allowing aid to flow and hostages to return. 

Despite these monumental achievements, the world is still full of war and strife. 

The Global Peace Index 2025 reported that the world is the least peaceful since World War II, with 59 active conflicts — the highest ever — and a 25% rise in violent incidents from 2024. 

To help counter the hostilities, let every Catholic parish look at promoting two things: 

• Celebrate the peace we already possess. Fill our churches. Invite the lonely, the migrant, and the doubting to Midnight Mass. Let the carols be loud, and the crib be crowded, because Christ is truly born and sin is truly conquered. 

• Refuse to be satisfied with anything less than the fullness of that peace. 

When the last candle is blown out and the crèches are packed away with care, keep helping the broken, the fearful, the deported, and the hungry in His loving memory. 

Let us work for just wages and just laws. Pray, fast, vote, speak, give, until the peace we experience at the altar becomes the peace the whole world enjoys. 

Christmas gives us the courage to live in that difficult, glorious tension until the day when every tear is wiped away. 

May this Christmastime be a time for abundance in our spirituality and chase the idea of scarcity from the world. 

Come, Lord Jesus. And until you come again in glory, give us the grace to be your peace, one stubborn, joyful step at a time.