During a speech at the annual Soulful Christmas Concert at the Kimmel Center, Father Christopher Walsh, a Bishop Shanahan graduate and priest at St. Raymond of Penafort Catholic Church in Philadelphia, recalled being reminded of a Christmas message by an unusual event four years ago, he writes in a guest column for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

At the time, Father Walsh, who is also a consultant with the Saint John Vianney Center in Downingtown, went for a haircut. The stylist was able to start cutting his hair immediately and, not knowing that he was a priest, invited him for a drink.

While Walsh politely declined, the event did affect him. Despite being off the market for 22 years, being hit on by a beautiful woman left him with a renewed sense of vibrancy and good feeling for simply being noticed.

This, wrote Walsh, reminded him of the fact that the “whole mystery of God becoming one of us happens because God is attracted to us.”

But what is more important, he said, is that “God understands our failures, fears, worries, doubts, and struggles — and is still very attracted to us.”

Read more about Father Walsh’s speech in The Philadelphia Inquirer here.

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