Christmas December 25, 2025
Fr. Alexander Albert St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville
“Where is God?” Agnes Bojaxhiu once asked a variation of that question to a bishop during adoration. Agnes was born in 1910 to a devoutly Catholic family. Besides their daily prayers and weekly Mass attendance, the family also expressed their faith in and love of the invisible God with a weekly visit to the poor to bring food and clothes and company. Like any Catholic family and even many secular ones, Christmas was a time of joy and celebration and family and food for Agnes’ family. Agnes herself, however, always found a way to get back to those poor families on Christmas day.
Eventually, Agnes joined the Sisters of Our Lady of Loreto in order to be a teacher. For 18 years she was a teacher mostly of the children of wealthy families, though she often found ways to get her students to make weekly visits to the poor just as she did as a child.
Then, in 1946, Agnes had a mystical encounter with our invisible God. Though she neither saw nor heard him audibly, the words of Jesus from the cross – “I thirst” – were deeply impressed upon her heart and mind. She spent the next two years going through the process required to leave the sisters of Our Lady of Loretto and get some training as a nurse. On Christmas day, 1948 Agnes – whose religious name was Teresa – went to morning Mass and then went by herself to the poorest part of Calcutta. She got so caught up visiting with families and playing with children that she, like the Holy Family, didn’t have a place to sleep and had to go knocking on doors in the middle of the night. The next day, she taught 5 children. Within a month, Mother Teresa found herself teaching over 40 children every day using sticks to draw in the dirt.
By 1979, Mother Teresa had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Today, there are over 5000 women in her order – the Missionaries of Charity – throughout the world. They serve the poorest of the poor, loving Christ in the “distressing disguise of the poor.” Not that it was all smooth easy progress. It was later her in life that Agnes, now Teresa, asked the bishop that question, “where is God?” She actually said “where is Jesus?” The bishop, a bit taken aback, pointed to the Eucharist in the monstrance and say, “right there, Mother.” It’s true, of course.
Mother Teresa never lost her faith though she went through long periods not clearly seeing God. God’s divine nature is invisible to us always, but sometimes he feels a bit more invisible. Yet, Mother Teresa persevered in seeing Jesus Christ in the poor, in the Eucharist, and in every human being. For this reason, many personally remember as an example of Jesus Christ Himself. She made God visible to the world even when she couldn’t always “see” him herself.
It’s no accident that Mother Teresa’s most famous ministry began on Christmas day, the day we celebrate “God made visible” in a tiny child born in a manger. The invisible God was, for about 33 years, literally visible on earth in the person of Jesus Christ born on Christmas, killed on Good Friday, and ascended into heaven 40 days after that. Even then, however, it was not obvious to most people that he was and is God. Depending on a person’s experience of suffering and darkness, of loneliness and poverty, of distraction and business, the invisible God was more or less difficult to see even when he was visible.
So, that question of Mother Teresa’s in adoration, that “where is Jesus?” is a universal human question. It is the question we all ask: “Where is God?” Even if we know up here that God is everywhere, even if we know by faith that God is present in the Eucharist and in the other sacraments, we still ask that question.
Tonight is the answer to that question. The invisible God is made visible in Jesus Christ. At our creation, God made every human being a visible sign of the invisible God. Through his incarnation, Jesus Christ only elevated that truth: now God himself literally has a human body like you and I. Though you and I are not literally God, we are the only physical thing in the universe that looks like God. The baby Jesus – so sweet, so cute, so heartwarming – is an absurd cosmic contradiction, a paradox so profound we truly cannot comprehend it. The invisible God who exists beyond time and space and fills every time and space… at the conception and birth of this child, that God is visibly in the universe in that time, at this place, with his body, speaking those specific words.
Where is God? In a manger in Bethlehem. Where is God? In a random town of Samaria talking to an adulterous woman. Where is God? Locked in an underground cellar, illegally held for a crime he didn’t commit. Where is God? In every single particle of the Eucharist, sacramentally present in every Confession, Baptism, Confirmation, Anointing of the Sick, every valid Marriage, every ordination of a deacon, priest, or bishop. Where is God? In every human being, especially in the distressing disguise of the poor.
But what does that answer do for a person who never actually considers the question? What does it do for the person who asks the question but is unconvinced by the answers? What does that answer do for you when your depression is so bad you can’t get out of bed or do more than merely survive? What does it do for you when natural disasters and horrible disease kill the best and most innocent of people? What does it do for you when addiction or weakness or simple carelessness puts you again and again and again in the position of feeling like you are irreparably damaged, worthless, or beyond hope?
Where is God? And why in the world does he have to always be so dang invisible? There are good answers. They’re even true. But when we ask that question, what matters almost as much as the answer is the timing of the answer and the disposition of our hearts when we hear it. Telling a mother about God’s infinite power to pull good out of evil isn’t terribly effective if they’re in a fit of grief-induced rage at the loss of their child. Speaking eloquently of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead can be counter-productive if you’re talking to a starving man in the ditch while leaning out window of a car full of the trash from the meal you bought and ate without for a second worrying about the cost of it.
We need the theology. There is a time for the rhetorically brilliant exhortation about supernatural hope in the midst of tragedy. There is, however, far more time and need for presence, for a love that makes the invisible God visible. Mother Teresa didn’t need the bishop to explain that Jesus’ body, blood, soul, and divinity is present in the Eucharist when she asked him, “where is Jesus,” during adoration. What she needed, fortunately, was for him to do what he was already doing: sitting in that dark room with her and showing her Jesus by his faithful worship and prayer before the blessed sacrament.
The poor of Calcutta did need to hear about Jesus in words. They still do! First, however, they needed to see the invisible God made visible in Mother Teresa herself, made visible by the way she looked at them as if they were Jesus. Mother Teresa’s first 24 hours of being a missionary of Charity included teaching children and she never stopped talking about Jesus. But throughout her life she answered the question, “Where is God?” by her very presence.
Where is God? Here. This is what Christmas is about: God made visible. Visible in the Christ Child, visible in every sacrament, visible in every choice that is guided by the virtues of faith, hope, and love given us through Baptism, Confirmation, Communion, and the daily practice of our religion. And if you do not “see” him right now? Do not be afraid! That’s normal, but it’s also not permanent. Do not be afraid and do not think you’re “supposed to” find a perfect answer to the cry of your heart “where is Jesus?” Even the shepherds and Magi led to Christ by angels and stars eventually walk away wondering. Even Joseph and Mary lose sight of Jesus sometimes. But he is here.
Rejoice! If today God is made visible to you in the festivity and prayer and loved ones gathered around. Rejoice! And remember to let others see God made visible in your joy and charity to others. Remember he is made visible not so that we can be done with looking. He is made visible so that we can learn to love and live for what is still invisible.
And if today you do not see him, do not be afraid! He is still the invisible God. You do not need to see him to know he is there. Remember what you have seen. Remember that others see what you do not. Visible or not, you can still do as Mother Teresa. Ask where he is even while you’re staring right at him in the Eucharist. Look for him by giving food or drink or clothing or shelter or even a smile to the poor. Do not be alarmed if his disguise is distressing. Only, persevere in loving him through that disguise.
Where is God? God the Son, the Eternal Word from all eternity became flesh and dwelt among us. He dwells among us still in the Eucharist in the poorest of the poor. Come let us adore him, serve him, love him so that the invisible God can be made visible not just in Churches and paintings, but in our very own flesh and blood.