When I asked trusted advisors on what I should speak to you about this year, they all answered, “Hope”. A difficult subject for me personally, for I reject all notions of prosperity gospel. I do not believe God necessarily rewards us in this life. I’ve read too much about those early Christians crucified and fed to the lions. All of the apostles of Christ were martyred, save Judas and John. And John was tortured horribly by being dipped in oil. 

And along with those early Christians, I think of the Holy Family itself – – fleeing from Herod, living in poverty in a strange land. And the Blessed Mother 33 years later standing at the foot of the cross.

The year of 2020, the year of barbaric riots and accepted anarchy; the year of asinine ideas espouse by uneducated activist for things like defunding the police; the year of a pandemic with well-over a 99% survival rate that has been used to take power from the people and given to the politicians; the year that Governors felt a rush of power in their little bellies; the year they shut down churches as if the constitution did not exist; the year they shut down small business, knowing full well the inevitable: that big business would swallow up small businesses, and that the average family would then depend on government for their own survival. This was the year of a stolen election – the year that your constitutional right to vote was thrown out along with your right to work and your right to practice your religion. This was the year in which the Great Reset was unabashedly proclaimed from all corners of the globe, herding Americans towards a globalist regime. This, my friends was the year of Socialism in America. Socialism is their endgame. And Socialism is the enemy of Christianity.

God gave Adam dominion over the garden. God emphasized private property in the 10 Commandments, by outlawing theft and coveting your neighbor’s goods. And history shows that socialistic societies eliminate not just private property, but religious freedom. There’s something marvelously divine that intertwines personal property and religious liberty – and socialism is its enemy.

Let’s make no mistake about it: this year has hurt you. Ideas have consequences, particularly stupid ideas. All the markers of a dying society have shot off faster than Elon Musk’s rockets: depression, suicide, drug use, child abuse.  

You see, humans are communal. We must have community. We were made in the image and likeness of the Blessed Trinity, which is a community of three distinct persons in the one nature of God. The only thing bad about the garden of Eden was that Adam was alone! And the demented leftist politicians all want you to be alone. Why? So you depend on them. 

I’m sorry to tell you, but I believe the left wants to ruin our business. They hate what you do. They snarl at our content. They cringe at our values. Why? Because they are wicked, diabolically oppressed children of darkness. That’s why. They are Harrod’s men, slaughtering the innocent, hoping to extinguish the light of the world. Who else would put forth the policies they do? If your grandparents were alive today, they would say that they fought in trenches to defeat such perverse ideology, and now we wallow in it like fattened pigs awaiting slaughter.

Wait a minute: I thought this was a Christmas message of hope? Well, it is. But it is one of true hope, the greatest hope, a hope for which we must be willing to give everything. But this hope is not a worldly optimism – a feel good positive thinking exercise. . . .

You see, 2,020 years ago, the Holy Family was on a 90-mile, treacherous march through the desert, filled with thieves and wild animals, all while the Blessed Virgin was 9 months pregnant. Joseph had to shut down his small business in order to comply with an oppressive government mandate. They had to wear face coverings during this 90-mile journey to protect their lungs from the sand and dust pounding against them. It seemed that all was against them. Here was a young, beautiful and happy family, just trying to make an honest living. And the government, accompanied by the powers of darkness, were against them. What kind of heartless, global-imperialist, self-obsessed tyrant curses someone like this? His name was Caesar. But, by divine command, we must render unto Caesar what is Ceasar’s and to God what is God’s.

Dear Colleagues, your work is more important than ever before. You are the vaccine to this disease! Some of you sell our services in small towns, helping to bring back a sense of community. You are calling people out of their own sadness, back to the light of giving and sharing and loving. You are helping them get back to normal. You are helping them connect with little kids not allowed to go to school, widows denied the dignity of celebrating a proper funeral, newlyweds who are denied the dignity of a proper wedding. You are more than ever the light of Christ in small towns across this country.

Others of you minister to the lost sheep amidst the depravity of big business. You are fighting the impersonal bureaucracy of big business, which far too often dehumanizes God’s children. You remind the big executives that people matter more than profit, that every rank and file employee is as dignified as they are.

And your products matter now more than ever before. Much of your clientele has been forced to work remote. And while there are many benefits to this, a sense of belonging, a sense of community is lost – and it was already strained by the cold corporate culture. The recipients of your products are employees of these big businesses, and they have been sent away, not unlike the Holy Family was turned away from the Innkeepers. But it was one particular Innkeeper – a busy employer – who went out of her way to care for someone in need. It was this busy business person who empathized with a young woman was having a baby – and she didn’t want to act as if it was business as usual. She did what she could for Mary and Joseph, and put them up in a modest stable, gave them warm blankets and warm water. 

    You are summoning Innkeepers to recognize others – to stop business as usual – to help those who are mourning, to celebrate those who are rejoicing. You are helping companies understand that even the best government program isn’t the solution to employee satisfaction or retention. In fact, the solution to these problems is the unencumbered, compassionate and creative concern for others – the heart of entrepreneurship.

And still others of you, who work in our publishing company, what I can I say about all you do! You are publishing and distributing in record numbers the most important content ever produced by mankind. Your content is a direct counter assault on the devil’s stratagem. Over 1 million times a year, your product points to the God who became flesh, taking the form of a slave. Tradition holds that when Lucifer, the Angel of Light, learned that he would have to bow down before flesh and blood, that he led a violent revolt against heaven, for his pride would not allow him to worship a sniffling baby in a manager. Our modern world refuses to do the same. Every time someone says to me “Happy Holidays” I hear a rejection of Jesus Christ. Every time I see a blood-thirsty revolt in the streets, tarring down statutes, throwing bricks at police, defacing religious artwork – all in the name of racial equality – and a media who lies to protect the marxists ideology of these hate groups –  I see that our nation has utterly rejected its Christian roots, jettisoned any notion of authority, and is grossly ignorant of biblical ethics. Our products speak the unencumbered truth, not overly-concerned with political correctness but also imbued with a charitable tone.

Yes, all our companies within Good Will are more important than ever before, for the darkness is closing in around us, and we are one of the few remaining businesses that shine the light of Christ upon the world. 

    But, what are we to do now, in a Biden Presidency, and soon to be a Harris Presidency, once Biden is deemed incompetent? Folks, I will not soft-peddle the truth: these people and their entourage hate what we stand for. The dividing lines between us and them will grow more stark. The threats to our right to work will be emboldened. The attacks on the right to private property and our sacred religious liberties will be torn down faster than a statute of Robert E. Lee. 

So, does this sound like a message of hope? Well, here is the hope.

You see, Jesus Christ, after his horrific agony in the Garden, after the Romans savagely scourged him like a worthless dog, after they forced thorns into his head, mocking his Kingship with vile laughter, Jesus Christ, the same little one born in a manger that we celebrate today, was shuffled before Pontius Pilot – a minion of Caesar – who asked him, “Don’t you know I have the power to crucify you or release you?” But Jesus said to Pilot something that all of us must remember. Jesus said that the power given to Pilot was given to him from above. You see, all power given to us, whether we deserve it or not, whether Biden-Harris deserves it or not, is given by God the Father. Jesus also told Pilot that his Kingdom was not of this world. And we must remember this. Jesus doesn’t care so much about politics; he cares about sin. He cares about humility and charity. He cares about those things that will count at our final judgment. 

So, if you want a message of hope, here it is: all that the devil has on his side is time: and he is running out of it. He knows that he must grab as many souls as possible before the clock runs out. And any power given to him or his minions on this earth is given to them by God the Father – just as he allowed the powers of darkness to surround the Holy Family.

This little baby in a manager, so helpless, so fragile, so innocent – something I have seen in my own 14 children – reminds me that our hope is not of this world, but in the world to come. And as Christians, we must not fear the powers of this world, any more than the Holy Family did. Rather we must go forth, spreading the good news in small towns, in big business, on Amazon and Facebook – and all the places you can find the Good Will people and products. 

Thank you for all you do for our business, our country, and the Body of Christ. Your king shall reign for all eternity, no matter the mess we find ourselves in on this mortal coil at this particular point in history. And if this is not a message of Hope, the greatest possible hope, then I do not know what is! 

May God bless you and your family.

Merry Christmas.