To the Clergy and Faithful of the Diocese of New England,
Greetings in the Incarnate Lord!
The birth of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ reminds us once again that He now shares with us the flesh that He created in the beginning, and that as a result of His sharing our flesh, that very flesh is enthroned at the right hand of the Father.
Our very body, then, is the image of Christ.
And so by our lives we strive to act as being that image would require. And we do this by faithfulness not only to the Commandments gifted on Sinai, but even more to the Beatitudes and to the works commended in our Lord's telling of the great judgment (Matthew 25.36 and following).
Calling to mind, then, that we have daily work to do in His name, whether in small things or great, and that we are His image, we remember also with joy that His help is ever present to us, since "Christ is born to raise up again what fell in days of old: His image."
I greet you with the joy and blessings of the Nativity!
In Christ,
+Benedict
Bishop of Hartford and New England
