Even though I grew up in a Catholic family where we attended Mass every Sunday, faith was something we left at the church door. We never prayed or read the Bible at home - not once. Our religious life was confined to the church, and the mission of evangelization felt completely foreign to us.

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I am, of course, grateful to my parents for bringing me to church, but the truth is that God felt distant to us all. As a result, we never really invited Him into our daily lives. Church was church, and life was life - there was little connection between the two.

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Everything began to change when I opened a House of Prayer. After a life-changing encounter with Jesus, and inspired by members of Koinonia John the Baptist, I invited friends, neighbours, and pretty much everyone I knew to join a weekly prayer meeting at my home. We would praise the Lord, read the Bible, and intercede for various needs.

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You can imagine the shock in my Catholic family when they saw people praying and reading the Bible in our house, not in the church! But, after the initial surprise wore off, everyone grew accustomed to our weekly gatherings and, eventually, even began to enjoy them. Through prayer and the proclamation of God’s Word in our house, the presence of Jesus became more real, more central, and more tangible in our lives. Slowly but surely, He started to change our hearts. Our relationships transformed as Jesus brought us out of isolation and fear, setting us free to love and share our true selves with one another.

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There isn’t enough space in this short message to recount all the miracles God has worked in our family since we welcomed Christ into our home. But this Christmas, I want to encourage you to open your hearts and your homes to Emmanuel - God with us. Let’s take seriously the call to pray together as families. There will be no renewal of the Church if we do not pray in our homes, if we do not invite Jesus into our families and listen to His Word together.

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We cannot expect God to transform our society, workplaces, or the challenges we face if we keep the doors of our homes closed to Him.

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Instead of watching another movie or scrolling through yet another podcast, even if religious, I invite you to spend time in prayer and Bible reading with your family and friends. In doing so, you will definitely experience a new Christmas – God with us. Merry Christmas!