How do you celebrate Christmas with fallen-away Catholics?

Many of us will celebrate Christmas with family members and friends who were once Catholic…but now are no longer practicing.  

Some left the Church intentionally, some just drifted away.  Some have fallen away from the “barque of Peter,”, some have jumped ship, some have just been swept away by the ocean of cares and worries in the world, rowing hard against the waves in a small boat with their backs to the ship towering above them.

Question: How do you celebrate a holiday honoring the Birth of Our Redeemer with these friends and relatives?  

Will you invite them to accompany your family to Christmas Vigil or Christmas Day Mass?  Will your gathering have a religious aspect to it?  Or will you ignore “politics and religion,” and stick to sports and the weather?

This article contains some insights from the experience of the daughter of the man who launched “Catholics Come Home.”

Consider reading this before you begin another Thanksgiving and Christmas season.

Please give us your comments on the article and your thoughts about how you use this time of joyful celebration to reach out to your family members to help them come home to the Church.

May God richly bless you and yours these last days of Advent as we focus on the Word made flesh to dwell among us and redeem us from our sins,