So welcome to our daily rosary meditation.

I am in Bethlehem.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Let's begin in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Let's call to mind all those we've promised to pray for.

The great paradox of the human condition is that we've been created with a purpose,

a purpose that we cannot achieve, that by our own efforts, we are doomed to a fundamental frustration of our nature. Why? Because we are creatures,

but we are made for union with God. We are finite, but we were made for the infinite. We have cut ourselves off from him by sin.

We cast ourselves out of heaven,

and we are too small and too weak to climb back to him.

Or think of it another way.

Imagine a river that's infinitely wide and infinitely deep

and has an infinitely strong current

the point is

there's no way

for us to get from our side to the side of God.

The problem is we've been born on the wrong side of the river.

But every part of us wants to get to the other side.

But there's no bridge.

This is the fundamental human dilemma.

This is the problem

...