All the Earth is Waiting
Week 4: Loving Relationship

As we enter into the last week of Advent, Bishop Escobedo-Frank encourages us to “Lay aside our judgements, find ways to love, even when we don’t understand somebody – that’s our job this Advent season. I pray that as you go into Christmas Eve, that the spirit of Christmas will be yours, and that the loving relationships around you will feed your soul.”

A transcript of this video is available below.

TRANSCRIPT

Our Advent theme this year has been All the World is waiting or, Toda la Tierra Espera. And we have been focusing on loving relationships in this past part of our advent series together as a California Pacific Conference. So as your bishop today, I want to ask you to lean into this last portion during this season where we finish out advent and move into the Christmas Day and the Christmas Eve moment.

That it’s our job to love God’s world. That loving relationships take a lot of work. They take time, they take determination, they take forgiveness, and mercy. And they also take a bit of humility – in order for us to love others, we have to be humble and know that, um, we aren’t perfect, and not expect of others what does not reside in our own selves. So, lay aside our judgments, find ways to love even, when we don’t understand somebody. That’s our job this advent season. 

And I pray that as you go into Christmas Eve, that the spirit of Christmas, the Merry Christmas spirit, will be yours. And that the loving relationships surround you will feed your soul. And that you’ll be one of the ones who help the world to know about the love of Christ, who came to us in the form of a little baby one Christmas Eve night.