God bless us and may the Virgin protect us!

On 24 December 2024 at 7 p.m. the Jubilee 2025 will officially begin, with the rite of the opening of the Holy Door of St. Peter's Papal Basilica by the Holy Father.  Following this, Francis will preside the celebration of Holy Mass on the night of the Lord's Christmas inside the Basilica.  And here is the commentary on the biblical texts of the Christmas Mass: the Midnight Mass and the Day Mass with our best and heartfelt wishes for a holy Christmas of Christ.

Christmas of Christ 2024 Midnight Mass 

First Reading from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah 9,1-6

*An announcement of salvation

It is a splendid messianic hymn dedicated to the Emanuel, the long hoped-for Messiah-King, which is illuminated with two images: the harvest and the military victory. As often happens, in order to understand the message of the biblical text that the liturgy proposes to us, it is necessary to consider it in context, and here it is good to read the verse that precedes this passage from Isaiah: "At first, the Lord covered the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali with shame; but afterwards, he covered the way of the sea, the land beyond Jordan and Galilee of the Gentiles with glory" (Is 8:23). We can thus date the prophet's words and understand whether they date from the very time of the events narrated, or, on the contrary, whether they were written later, and thus know with certainty to which political context he is referring (even in the case that the text dates much later). Secondly, like every prophetic word, this too is a message that God addresses to revive the hope of the people. Let us see the historical context: after David and Solomon had ruled over the whole of Israel, upon Solomon's death in 933 B.C., the so-called schism of Israel gave rise to two often conflicting kingdoms: to the north, the kingdom of Israel with capital Samaria, and to the south, the kingdom of Judah, with capital Jerusalem, a direct descendant of David and considered the rightful bearer of the divine promises. Isaiah preached in the southern kingdom, but Zebulun, Naphtali, the sea route, the land beyond the Jordan and Galilee are all places in the northern kingdom, all regions conquered by the Assyrian king Tiglat-Pileser III in 732 BC. In 721 BC, the capital Samaria was also annexed and Assyrian and then Babylonian rule began. It is in this context that Isaiah foresees a radical change, announcing that the humbled lands will see glory: 'The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; on those who dwelt in the land of darkness, a light shone. The people who dwelt in the land of darkness brings to mind the many deported to Babylon often blinded by the rulers. The southern kingdom, with its capital Jerusalem, was not indifferent to events in the north, both because it feared occupation and above all because there was a great desire for reunification to bring Israel back to unity under the Davidic throne. This is why the arrival of a new king was regarded as the dawn of a new day: 'A child has been born to us, a son has been given to us ... he will be called the Prince of Peace'. These expressions are part of the ritual of consecration of the new king and Isaiah states with certainty that God will not abandon his people to slavery, because his faithfulness is unwavering and he cannot deny himself.  He adds: 'For you have broken the yoke that oppressed him, the bar on his shoulders, and the rod of his tormentor as in the day of Midian'. Midian and the Midianites: the prophet assures that God will intervene to liberate his people, and cites as an example Gideon's victory over the Midianites when in the middle of the night with 300 men armed only with trumpets, torches and earthen pitchers, and above all faith in God, he defeated an immensely larger army (Judges 7). Thus the prophet's message is clear: Do not be afraid little flock, for it is in the darkness that you must believe the light. Despite the difficulties that continue to mark these times, Isaiah invited to keep hope alive, based on the certainty that the Lord, as in the past, never fails in his plan of love for all mankind. And just then, when Isaiah was formulating this promise, the young king Achaz of Jerusalem had sacrificed his son, the heir to the throne, to an idol out of fear of war. The Davidic descendants seemed doomed to extinction and it is at such a moment that Isaiah reawakens confidence by saying that a new heir will be given since nothing can deter the faithfulness of God who fulfils all his promises. This certainty rests on the memory of what God has done for his people. In this regard, it is sufficient to recall that Moses often renewed to Israel the invitation to "not forget" the wonders of the Lord because when our trust fails, it is we who lose.  And Isaiah also told King Ahaz: "If you do not believe, you cannot endure" (Is 7:9). Every time has its share of trials and sufferings, of darkness and misfortune, but to be convinced that God does not fail in his word is always a prophecy of victory, and no matter how great the difficulties in our families and communities, the challenge is to keep hope alive: God does not give up or abandon his plan of love for all. 

Responsorial Psalm 95/96)

*Proclaiming the good news from the rooftops 

It is a pity that today's liturgy provides only seven verses of this wonderful psalm 95/96, which should be read in its entirety because it invites enthusiasm and joy, and because in a time of great difficulty it is sung in the Temple of Jerusalem. It is a psalm that communicates the vigour of faith, indeed of hope; in other words, the joy that is born of faith and the hope that makes one believe certain even that which one does not possess. We are thus already projected to the end of the world, when all humanity will recognise God as the one true God and place its trust in Him alone. It is necessary to imagine with imagination the scene that the psalm describes: in Jerusalem, or rather in the Temple, the nations, the races of the world throng, the esplanade is packed with cheering heads that even invade the steps of the Temple courtyard. By now Jerusalem is no longer enough and everywhere you look you see people from all over the planet continuing to arrive. It is a symphony of voices singing: "The Lord reigns!", an incredible ovation similar to the joy at the coronation of a new king. Now, however, it is not the people of Israel that acclaims its king, but the whole of humanity that rejoices for its true king: the earth quivers with joy, the seas join in the symphony and the trees dance with the countryside all in celebration. It will then become clear that men have allowed themselves to be deceived for a long time, have abandoned the true God to resort to idols, and that the prophets' struggle has always been against idolatry. It will then seem incredible that it has taken men so long to recognise their Creator, their Father, despite the fact that a hundred times the cry has resounded: the Lord is "terrible above all gods", it is He, the Lord, and no one else has made the heavens. At last the time of celebration will come: in Jerusalem people will flock to acclaim God having heard the good news proclaimed for centuries: "day after day Israel has proclaimed its salvation". day after day it has told of God's work, of his wonders, that is, of his unceasing work of deliverance; day after day it has testified that God has delivered it from Egypt and from all forms of slavery: the most terrible of slavers is putting one's trust in false values, in false gods, in idols that can only disappoint. To Israel falls 

 the fate and the extraordinary honour of proclaiming that the Lord our God, the Eternal, is the only God, as the Shema Israel recites: 'Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is the only Lord'. The psalm refers to Israel's vocation, already evoked in the book of Deuteronomy: "You have witnessed these things, so that you may recognise that the Lord is God: there is none other than he" (Deut 4:35), and the time comes when this astonishing news is heard to the ends of the earth... and all flock to enter the House of the Father of all. We are here in full anticipation! While waiting for this dream to be realised, the people of Israel resound this psalm to renew their faith and their hope, and to draw the necessary strength to make the good news of which they are the depositary heard.

Second Reading from the Letter of St Paul the Apostle to Titus (2:11-14). This reading is also present in the Dawn Mass (3, 4-7 ).

 *Baptism immerses us in the Grace of God 

The letter to Titus contains the advice that Paul, the founder of the community, dispenses to Titus, who assumes responsibility for it. For reasons of style and even chronology, many experts on the Pauline letters believe that the letter to Titus, like the two to Timothy, were only written at the end of the first century, some thirty years after the apostle's death, following his thought and to support his work. In the absence of certainty, we continue to speak of St Paul as the author of the letter to whom it is addressed: they are the inhabitants of Crete, the Cretans, who had a very bad reputation in Paul's time, as Epimenides of Knossos, a local poet already in the 6th century BC, described them: 'Cretans, perennial liars, wicked beasts, idle bellies'. And Paul, quoting him, confirms: "This testimony is true!". However, it was precisely to the flawed Cretans that Paul proclaimed the gospel and this was not easy. He then left it to Titus, who remained on the spot, to organise the young Christian community.  Regardless of when the letter was written, it is clear that the difficulties of the Cretans persisted. The letter to Titus is very short, only three pages of which we read in the Night Mass the end of chapter 2, while the beginning of chapter 3 is proposed for the Dawn Mass and the whole passage for the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, year C. All that precedes and follows this passage consists of practical recommendations directed to the members of the community: old and young, men and women, masters and slaves including those in charge, to whom he recommends that they be blameless: "The bishop must be blameless as a steward of God: not arrogant, not violent, not stingy with illicit gains. He must be hospitable, a lover of good, thoughtful, just, holy, self-possessed, firm in the Word'. In short, it is not difficult to understand that there is a lot of work to be done and as a good pedagogue, St Paul does not venture to give superfluous advice. One must keep in mind the link between the moral advice he dispenses and the passage that interests us today, which is a theological exposition on the mystery of faith. The message is clear: for Paul, it is Baptism that makes us new men, and all the advice he dispenses is justified on the sole grounds that 'the goodness of God our Saviour and his love for mankind appeared'.  Indeed, the biblical text actually begins with 'when' and some editions place 'why'. So: 'when the goodness of God, our saviour, and his love for mankind appeared, he saved us, not because of any righteous works we had done, but because of his mercy'. In other words, behave well, because God's grace has been manifested for the salvation of all men. This means that Christian morality is rooted in the central event of world history: the birth of Christ. When Paul writes: 'the grace of God has appeared to bring salvation to all men', he means that God became man. And from that moment, our way of being men is transformed "with water that regenerates and renews in the Holy Spirit" (3:5). Since that moment, everything has changed and consequently our behaviour must also change and we must allow ourselves to be transformed because the world awaits our testimony. It is not a matter of gaining merits (he saved us not because of righteous works performed by us, but because of his mercy), but of testifying with our lives that God wants the salvation of all mankind also through us: "the goodness of God, our Saviour, and his love for mankind appeared". God's plan, foreseen from eternity, envisages the uniting of all around Jesus Christ so as to become one with Him, overcoming divisions, rivalries, hatred, making us all one in Him. Certainly there is still a long way to go and for many it is a utopia, but as believers we know that every promise of God is a certainty. Paul says it clearly: "looking forward to the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ". and the use of the verb wait indicates the conviction that sooner or later it will happen.  In the celebration of the Eucharist, the priest repeats this after the Lord's Prayer: 'While waiting for the blessed hope and the coming of our Saviour Jesus Christ'. It is a true act of faith that becomes hope: we dare to affirm that Christ's love will have the last word in every situation. This certainty and this expectation are the beating heart of the entire liturgy: during the celebration, we Christians do not have our eyes turned to the past, but are already in Christ 'one man' who peers into the future, and when the end of time comes, those who look at us will be able to write: 'behold, they are all like one man, and this man is Jesus Christ', what we call the total Christ.  

Gospel according to Luke ( 2:1-14)

*In the poverty of the manger lies the secret of the Incarnation

The night of Bethlehem echoes with a marvellous proclamation: 'Peace be to men who are loved by the Lord', to be well understood because there are no people whom God does not love. After all, it is God's plan, expressed once again: "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son" (John 3:16) and there is nothing to fear. "Do not be afraid", the angels say to the shepherds, and after all, why should one be afraid when a child is born? Let us try to believe that God has probably chosen to make himself a newborn child to awaken love for him in our hearts, abandoning all fear and shame. Like Isaiah with Achaz, the angel also announces the birth of a king: 'Today, in the city of David, a Saviour has been born to you, who is Christ the Lord. Behold, the one who had been awaited for many centuries was born at last, and at that time the prophecy of Nathan to King David was on everyone's mind: 'The Lord announces to you that he will make you a house. When thy days are fulfilled, and thou restest with thy fathers, I will raise up a descendant of thee out of thy womb, and will make his kingdom established' (2 Sam 7:11-12).

This is why Luke specifies the origins of Joseph, the father of the child: 'Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem: for he belonged to the house and family of David'. Moreover, according to Micah's prophecy, the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem: "And you, Bethlehem of Ephratah, so small to be among the villages of Judah, out of you shall come forth for me the one who is to be ruler in Israel... He shall rise and feed with the power of the LORD, with the majesty of the name of the LORD his God... and he himself shall be peace" (Mi 5:1, 4). 

So the angels announce good news, great joy to the shepherds, and one can understand why the heavenly hosts sing the glory of God. What is always surprising, however, is the contrast between the greatness of the destiny promised to the Messiah and the littleness of a child, born in the most humble and precarious circumstances. "the strength of God's arm", which liberates his people, of which Psalm 88/89 speaks, lies mysteriously in the small hands of a child born into one poor family among many others. How extraordinary is the poverty of a manger! Yet it is precisely there that the sign of God is manifested: we encounter Jesus in the simplest everyday life, even in poverty, and this is the mystery, indeed the secret of the Incarnation.

"The heir of all things", as we read in the letter to the Hebrews (1:2), is born among the poor; he whom St John calls "the light of the world" finds his cradle in the manger of an obscure stable; he who is the Word of God, who created the world, came into the world like every other creature and, like everyone else, will in time have to learn to speak. One can then understand and not be surprised that "his own did not welcome and recognise him" and we are not surprised that it was precisely the poor and the little ones who most readily accepted his message. He is the God of Mercy who goes out to meet all kinds of poverty and has compassion on our misery. This holy night invites us not to be afraid to turn our gaze on a poor manger, for it is here that we discover the truest way to resemble Jesus and thus receive as a gift the power to "become children of God" (Jn 1:12).

The great joy of Christmas that the angels bring to the shepherds, the outcasts of society, has resounded in every corner of the world for over two millennia now. Faced with such joy and such a great mystery of renewed life, many questions arise in the heart: why is it that in some parts of the world where this proclamation has resounded, division and war persist? Why is it that so many communities seem tired of waiting and fall back on other interests that often lead away from waiting for the Saviour? Why is the amazement at the birth of a child no longer for some the sign of a love that opens up to life? So many whys for a Christmas of Christ that risks being suffocated by the noisy cry of a society preoccupied with a thousand different issues and threatened by sadness if not sometimes even despair. The story of Christ's birth then found many heedless because they were busy with everyday matters. A few shepherds, excluded and impure in society, were the first and only ones to rush in. A sign and a message: the triumph of a God who out of love becomes a small child is a comfort and support for those who continue to await his return and know that, beyond all human expectations, this humble king of glory wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger is our saviour, Christ the Lord. It is therefore "good news, great joy" that the angels announce to the shepherds, but it can only be transformed into peace in the heart of those who go out and meet him in the humble stable in Bethlehem. 

25 December Mass of the Day 

Reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah 52:7-10

*The Lord consoles his people 

"Break forth together in songs of joy, ye ruins of Jerusalem". The reference to the ruins of Jerusalem allows the text of Isaiah to be precisely placed. Jerusalem was devastated by Nebuchadnezzar's troops in 587 BC who did everything: looting, destruction, violence, desecration. Valuable men and women were deported to Babylon while leaving peasants to feed the occupiers, and the exile lasted fifty years, enough time to become discouraged and lose hope of ever seeing their land again. In this bleak picture, the prophet announces the return, he who had begun to preach as follows: "Console, console my people, says your God" (Is 40:1) and here, imagining the messenger announcing the great news in Jerusalem and the sentinel who, from the hills of the city, sees the deportees arriving, he uses the same verb console: "the Lord has consoled his people", meaning that the Lord has already acted and that the return is now imminent. He speaks of a foot-messenger and a sentinel, two figures that have disappeared in the age of telecommunications and fibre optics, but in those days a runner was entrusted with the task of transmitting news. The most famous example is that of the marathon: in 490 B.C., after the victory of the Athenians over the Persians at Marathon, a runner ran the 42 km to Athens to announce the victory, exclaimed Victory! and then collapsed. As the athletes/messengers ran, sentries posted on the city walls scanned the horizon. Here Isaiah imagines a sentry lurking on the walls of Jerusalem who sees the messenger approaching from hill to hill and announces: 'How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of the messenger who proclaims peace, the messenger of good news, who proclaims salvation', and when the messenger arrives he cries out to Zion, the holy city: 'Your God reigns'. The people are finally saved and the city is rebuilt by those who return: that is why the ruins of Jerusalem are invited to exult with joy. In Israel, the defeats of the people were considered defeats of their God, but now the people are delivered and their God has shown his power, as the prophet says: 'The Lord has unfurled his holy arm. He has delivered his people as from Egypt, "with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm" (Deut 4:34). And this is not the end of the prophet's vision because behind the messenger, the sentinel sees the triumphal procession and "the return of the Lord to Zion", who walks in the midst of his people and will be present again in Jerusalem. Isaiah states that the Lord 'redeemed Jerusalem', a very strong term to describe God's action. In the Bible, to redeem, to redeem means to set free.  In the tradition of the Hebrew people, the Go'el is the next of kin who redeems a family member who has fallen into slavery or who has sold their house to pay debts, and the prophet applies this role to God, a way of emphasising that the Lord is the next of kin of his people and sets them free, redeems them. "The Lord has stretched out his holy arm before all nations; all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God". Something very important must also be emphasised here: during the Babylonian exile there was an important evolution in Jewish theology because Israel understood that God loves all mankind and not just the people he has chosen. Indeed, his people now know that their own election is a mission to serve the salvation of all. We hear this text at Christmas and the words of the prophet "The Lord has stretched out his holy arm before all nations; all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God" take on new meaning for us. We too have the mission to proclaim and bear witness to peace; we are messengers of the gospel that is for all, and on this day we cry out to the whole world: 'Your God is king, your God reigns'.

Responsorial Psalm 97 (98),1-6

 *The People of the Covenant

"All the ends of the earth have seen the victory of our God". Singing is Israel, which claims the privileged relationship of a small people with the God of the universe, but has understood, little by little, that its mission is not to jealously guard this special relationship, but to proclaim God's love for all, so that the whole of humanity may gradually enter into the Covenant. It is a psalm that shows the two loves of God: his love for the chosen people, Israel, and his love for all mankind, whom the psalmist calls the nations. "The Lord has made his salvation known, in the eyes of the Gentiles he has revealed his righteousness" (v.2) and immediately afterwards, recalling Israel's election, "He has remembered his love, his faithfulness to the house of Israel" (v.3). The words love (chesed) and faithfulness (emet) recall the Covenant and are the same words with which the Lord made himself known in the desert to the people he chose: "The Lord, the merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, preserving his love for a thousand generations" (Ex 34:6-7). Here, God is defined by fundamental characters that are worth remembering: merciful (rachum); pitiful (chanun), rich in love (chesed) and faithfulness (emet). This description of God as 'love and faithfulness' becomes a pivotal point in Israel's faith, which is often found in the psalms and prophets to highlight the faithful and love-filled bond between God and his people along the desert journey. Israel is therefore truly the chosen people, but its election is not for selfish enjoyment, but to become the elder brother of humanity. As André Chouraqui said, 'the people of the Covenant is destined to become the instrument of the Covenant between peoples'. One of the great teachings of the Bible is that God loves all people of every race and culture, not just Israel, and this psalm - which we often find in the liturgy - demonstrates this also in its structure: verses 2 and 3 are constructed according to the pattern of inclusion, which is a literary technique used in the Bible. It is done as a frame to highlight the central text which is the verse concerning Israel: "He remembered his love, his faithfulness to the house of Israel", and the phrases that enclose it speak of the nations: "The Lord has made known his salvation, in the eyes of the Gentiles he has revealed his righteousness", all the ends of the earth - replacing the Gentiles - have seen the victory of our God". The election of Israel is central, set in a frame that emphasises Israel's universal mission: to be a light to all the peoples of the world. When the people of Israel, during the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem, acclaim God as king, they already know they are doing so on behalf of all humanity. As they sing, they imagine the day when God will be recognised as king by the whole earth.

Some further notes. This psalm highlights two themes: the first is the insistence on God's two loves: for Israel, the chosen people, and for all humanity; the second is the proclamation of God's kingship. In the Temple of Jerusalem, they sang: "Acclaim the Lord all the earth, shout, exult, sing hymns", even if the verb to sing is reductive: in Hebrew, the psalm uses language that recalls a cry of victory (teru'ah), like the one raised on the battlefield after a victory, and the term "victory" appears three times in the first verses: "His right hand and his holy arm gave him victory" (v.1); "The Lord has made his victory known, in the eyes of the nations he has revealed his righteousness"(v 2); "All the ends of the earth have seen the victory of our God"(v 3).

A twofold victory is emphasised: 1.the deliverance from Egypt: "he gave victory his right hand and his holy arm" recalls the divine enterprise of the deliverance from slavery in Egypt and the crossing of the Red Sea. In Deuteronomy we read: "The Lord brought thee out of Egypt with a strong hand and an outstretched arm" (5:15), a symbol of salvation, and the expression in the psalm "he did wonders" (v 1) is also a reference to the wonders of deliverance from Egypt.  2.The final victory over evil: The psalm also looks to the future final victory, when God will triumph over all the forces of evil and on that day he will be acclaimed king, not in the manner of earthly kings who disappoint, because his victory will be final and will never disappoint. We Christians can acclaim God with even greater vigour, because our eyes contemplate at Christmas the King of the world, the Incarnation of the Son, and we know that the Kingdom of God, the kingdom of love, has already begun. And contemplating the helpless Child in the crib, we cannot help but think that at this moment the saving power of God's arm is in the two tiny hands of a newborn baby. 

Reading from the letter to the Hebrews (1:1-6)

*God spoke to the fathers through the prophets 

"God spoke to the fathers through the prophets": thanks to this sentence, we can guess that the recipients of the Letter to the Hebrews are Jews who have become Christians because a characteristic feature of Israel is precisely the conviction that God has revealed himself progressively to the people he has chosen. Since God is not within man's grasp, it is necessary for him to take the initiative to reveal himself, as we also perceive from the Letter to the Ephesians: "God has made known to us the mystery of his will" (Eph 1:9) because on our own we could never have discovered and thus encountered him. And this happened in a progressive manner equal to the upbringing of a child to whom parents communicate according to his development and in a gradual manner how to understand reality, himself and the society around him. Moses similarly explains God's pedagogy in the book of Deuteronomy: "As a man educates his son, so the Lord your God educates you" (Deut 8:5). God entrusted this gradual education of his people in every age to the prophets who spoke on his behalf and used a manner comprehensible to the mentality of the people and the time because God used a very gradual pedagogy with his people by speaking to them "many times and in various ways" (Heb 1:1). The prophets were thus considered the "mouth of God", as we hear in the celebration of the Mass: "Many times you have offered men your covenant, and through the prophets you have taught them to hope for salvation" (Eucharistic Prayer IV). The author of the Letter to the Hebrews knows that salvation has already been accomplished and for this reason he divides human history into two periods: before Christ is all that he calls the past; after Christ are the days that we are living, the time of fulfilment, since in Jesus the new world has already begun and Christ is the fulfilment of God's plan, which we call the design of divine benevolence. Beginning with Christ's resurrection, which astonished the hearts of the first believers, the conviction of the Christians of the primitive communities gradually formed to the point of realising that Jesus of Nazareth is truly the Messiah awaited by the Jewish people, even if in a very different way from the idea they had had in the past. The entire New Testament hinges on this surprising discovery: there were those who awaited a Messiah-King, others a Messiah-Prophet, still others a Messiah-Priest, and in the Letter to the Hebrews, as we read in today's passage, it is said that Jesus Christ is all of this.

Christ is therefore truly Priest, Prophet and King

1. Jesus, the Messiah-Prophet. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews states: "God has spoken to us through his Son". Jesus is the prophet par excellence: if the prophets of the Old Testament were considered to be the "mouth of God", he is the very Word of God, the creative Word "through whom also the world was made" (Heb 1:2); indeed he is "the radiance of his glory", that is, of God (Heb 1:3) as it happened in the episode of the Transfiguration. Jesus said to the disciples in the Upper Room: "He who has seen me has seen the Father" (Jn 14:9), thus the perfect expression of God's being.

2. Jesus, the Messiah-Priest. The High Priest had the role of intermediary between God and the sinful people and Jesus, in total and perfect filial relationship of love with the Father, re-establishes the Covenant between God and humanity. He is therefore the high priest par excellence, who accomplishes the 'cleansing of sins', a cleansing that Jesus accomplished, as the author will explain later in his letter, by living his entire life in a perfect dialogue of love and obedience with the Father.

3. Jesus, the Messiah-King. In the Letter to the Hebrews, titles and prophecies are attributed to Jesus here that related to the Messiah: the image of the royal throne, "he sat at the right hand of the majesty in the highest heaven", and above all "You are my Son, today I have begotten you", the title of Son of God was bestowed on the new king on the day of his consecration, an expression that we also find in Psalm number 2. The prophet Nathan had announced: "I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son" (2 Sam 7:14). Unlike the kings of the earth, Jesus is king over all creation, even over the angels: "He became so much greater than the angels that the name he inherited was more excellent than theirs" (Heb 1:4), and "When he introduced the firstborn into the world, he said, Let all the angels of God worship him" (Heb 1:6). The author affirms that Christ is God Himself, since only God is entitled to the adoration of angels.

This biblical text not only reveals Christ's greatness, but also our vocation: through baptism we have become priests called to live in communion with God and to intercede for the world; prophets whose mission is to witness the gospel to all with our lives; kings committed to reign over sin and to contribute to the coming of God's Kingdom. Meditating on this biblical page on Christ's Christmas Day is an invitation to contemplate the mystery of Christ's birth and to become aware that the child lying in the manger is the eternal Word, who came to make us sons and daughters of God, priests, prophets and kings, called to share in the glory of the Father for all eternity. 

Gospel according to John (1:1-18)

 *Creation is the fruit of love 

"In the beginning". The evangelist John purposely takes up the first word of Genesis Bereshit and it is necessary to perceive its depth because it is not a mere chronological reference because "what began" is "what guides" all human history, that is, it is the origin and foundation of all things. "In the beginning was the Word": everything is placed under the sign of the Word, the Word of Love indeed, and the meaning of life: therein lies the origin and beginning of all things. "And the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God" (v. 2-3): in Greek it is "pros ton Theon" which literally means "turned towards God", the Word was turned towards God: it is the attitude of dialogue. If I say: 'I love you' I am really dialoguing with someone, I am face to face with you, facing the one I am talking to; if instead I turn my back the dialogue is interrupted and it is necessary to go back to re-establish it. St John states something essential: since nothing was made without the Word, all creation is the fruit of the dialogue of love between the Father and the Son. Each of us was created in this dialogue and for this dialogue: we are the fruit of a dialogue of love. Generated by love, we can say that we are the fruit of God's love and the vocation of humanity, of Adam, to use the Genesis term, is to live a perfect dialogue of love with the Father. However, human history proves otherwise as we read in the account of the fall of Adam and Eve. The second chapter of Genesis clearly shows that the dialogue was broken; the man and woman did not trust God, indeed they suspected that God did not have good intentions towards them: this is the opposite of the dialogue of love. We know from experience that when suspicion invades our relationships, the dialogue becomes poisoned. The whole story of each of us' personal relationship with God could be represented like this: sometimes we are turned towards Him, sometimes we turn away, and then we have to return so that He can re-establish the dialogue. This is exactly the meaning in the Bible of the word conversion 'shùv', which means to return, to turn back, to go home.

Jesus lives this dialogue in a perfect way on a daily basis and takes it upon Himself to guide humanity: one could say that He is the 'yes' of the whole of humanity and it is precisely through Him that we are restored to the primordial dialogue with God: 'To all who received Him, however, He gave power to become children of God: to those who believe in His name'. "To 'become children of God' means to rediscover the filial, trusting, shadowless relationship with him, and Christ's sole purpose is to enable all mankind to enter into this dialogue of love; 'those who believe in his name' are those who entrust themselves to Christ and confidently place themselves in his footsteps. The thought goes to the Upper Room where Jesus expresses his ardent desire: "That all may be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you. May they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me" (Jn 17:21) and I am reminded of what Kierkegaard writes: "The opposite of sin is not virtue, the opposite of sin is faith". "Believing" is trusting the Father; it is knowing in all circumstances, whatever happens, that God loves me; it is never suspecting Him and never doubting His love for us and for the world, and consequently being able to look at the world with God's gaze. This is the message that comes to us from the Christmas of the Word made flesh: to look at the world with God's eyes. "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us": if He came to be here with us, it is not necessary to flee from the world to encounter God, indeed it is in the "flesh", that is, in everyday reality that we can read and experience His presence. Like John the Baptist, each of us is sent to be a witness to this presence. Each Christmas reminds us of this gift and encourages us to share it with as many people as we can.

+ Govanni D'Ercole