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

The complexities of existence.
Life is not always easy and the complexities of existence have always existed; they accompany us along the path of our daily lives.
In times gone by, it was often the family doctor who listened to them and associated them as related to the health of his patients and gave them advice.
When, on the other hand, the difficulties were of an ethical nature, people turned to the priest who, through accompaniment and confession, gave suggestions on how to redeem themselves.
Later, with the discovery of psychology in its various forms, people became concerned with human problems. The figure of the psychologist in the broad sense or the psychiatrist joined the previous figures. As far as the field of the psychiatrist is concerned more specifically, the problems are not visible illnesses.
People who are afflicted by life complications are not patients in the usual sense. They can be normal, productive people - as normal as one can be in our community.
Generally, these daily contrarieties may concern interpersonal relationships, the way one works, performance issues... but also the issue of living honestly, in line with one's principles and personal beliefs. Then there are the contrarieties of practical life, which can often accentuate the others.
A lot also depends on our typical behaviours with which we defend ourselves or construct our way of life, and which were formed at an early period - unconsciously imitating people who had meaning in our lives (the so-called character, very succinctly).
Jung argues that the child's unconscious depends on the parental unconscious.
Almost always in my long professional practice I encountered this construct, and I had to struggle to make people understand that it was the parents who triggered the behaviour.
Often when I encountered parents who did not want to accept certain responsibilities, the latter would resort to excuses that did not hold up in any way.
In relationships between individuals, the most annoying issue concerns how we experience our affections.
There are aggressive people who seek people to dominate. There are those who exploit the other (the unwary); and so on.
In love relationships, one has to pay attention to how each one stands towards the other. Let us give some examples.
A woman who suffers because of her spouse who hinders her every development (or vice versa) must understand or be helped to understand that she has somehow sought this situation, and that it is only by finding confidence in her own possibilities and ability to manage herself that she will find relief from her pains.
Otherwise, i.e. if he does not discover his own potential, not even by separating will he solve his problems - because he will unconsciously seek the same kind of spouse.
Only people who are able to respect each other's needs and interests are capable of adult love. We often confuse our own desire with that of the other.
How many times in counselling with couples have I encountered this.
In job difficulties we often find people who move from one job to another because they are not satisfied with the lack of recognition. It may be, for example, an individual with grandiose ideas about his or her aptitudes who has to seek admiration in the work environment .
Then there are people who do creative work and feel that they do not produce as they would like. Here we are often faced with an unachievable perfectionism. Often such individuals are unable to admit that they have limits, and are confronted with their real capabilities.
It then happens that many people turn to an analyst because although they do not have a form of depression, they are not happy with themselves.
In his Psychoanalysis of Contemporary Society, Erich Fromm argues that consumerism leads us to an 'alienation from self'. By 'alienation' he means that which in principle belongs to man and then becomes foreign to him - eventually dominating us.
We must be as others want us to be.
Advertising and fashion itself also consciously influence us, and in this way if we do not conform we can feel backward.
We often get into conflict between our beliefs and the need to 'please' people.
Of course we do not have to be isolationists, but even here a proper balance 'saves' us, since repudiating certain fundamental tenets of our way of being does a lot of damage.
May the coming Christmas enlighten us, show us the way. Not infrequently, here too, we match current population trends, and often forget its true meaning.

Francesco Giovannozzi Psychologist-psychotherapist

Placing in the events of persecution

(Mt 10:17-22)

 

The course of history is a time when God composes the confluence of our freedom and circumstances.

In such folds there is often a vector of life, an essential aspect, a definitive destiny, that escapes us.

But to the non-mediocre eye of the person of Faith, abuses and even martyrdom are also a gift.

To learn the important lessons of life, every day the believer ventures into what he is afraid to do, overcoming fears.

The spousal and gratuitous love received places us in a condition of reciprocity, of active desire to unite life to Christ - albeit in the meagre nature of our responses.

Continuing instead to complain about failures, dangers, calamities, everyone will see in us women like the others and ordinary men - and everything will end at this level.

We won’t be on the other side. At most we will try to escape the harshness, or we will end up looking for circumstance’s allies (vv.19).

 

Mt intends to help his communities to clash with worldly logic and to place themselves fervently in the events of persecution.

Social harassments are not fatalities, but opportunities for mission; places of high eucharistic witness (v.18).

The persecuted do not need external crutches, nor do they have to live in the anguish of collapse.

They have the task of being signs of the God’s Kingdom, which gradually leads the distant and the usurpers themselves to a different awareness.

No one is the arbiter of reality and all are twigs subject to reverses, but in the humanizing condition of the apostles overflows an emotional independence.

This happens through the intimate, living sense of a Presence, and the reading of external events as an exceptional action of the Father who reveals himself.

In this mouldable energy magma, unique paths emerge, unprecedented opportunities for growth... even in adversity.

Attitude without alibi or granite certainties: with the sole conviction that everything will be put back on the line.

Sacred and profane times come to coincide in a fervent Covenant, which nests and bears fruit even in moments of travail and paradox.

Here the only necessary resource is the spiritual strength to go all the way... yes, in paradoxes of other side.

It’s in the Lord and in the insidious or day-to-day reality the "place" for each of us. Not without lacerations.

Yet we draw spiritual energy from the knowledge of Christ, from the sense of deep bond with Him and even minute and varied reality, or fearsome - always personal (v.22b).

Our story will not be like an easy and happy ending novel.

But we’ll have the opportunity to witness in the present the most genuine ancient roots: at every moment God calls, manifests himself - and what seems to be failure becomes Food and source of Life.

 

 

To internalize and live the message:

 

What kind of reading do you do, and how do you place yourself in events of persecution? 

Are you aware that setbacks do not come for despair, but to free you from closure in stagnant cultural patterns (and not yours)?

 

 

[St. Stephen protomartyr, December 26]

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

On the day after Christmas the liturgy has us celebrate the "birth into Heaven" of the first martyr, St Stephen. "Full of faith and of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 6: 5), he was chosen as deacon in the Community of Jerusalem, together with another six disciples of Greek origin. Stephen worked numerous miracles with the power that came to him from God and proclaimed the Gospel in the synagogues with "inspired wisdom". He was stoned to death outside the city gates and died like Jesus, praying for forgiveness for those who killed him (cf. Acts 7: 59-60). The deep bond which links Christ to his first martyr Stephen is divine Charity:  the very Love which impelled the Son of God to empty himself and make himself obedient unto death on a Cross (cf. Phil 2: 6-8) later spurred the Apostles and martyrs to give their lives for the Gospel.

It is always necessary to notice this distinctive feature of Christian martyrdom:  it is exclusively an act of love for God and for man, including persecutors. At holy Mass today, we therefore pray to the Lord that he who "died praying for those who killed him, [may] help us to imitate his goodness and to love our enemies" (cf. Opening Prayer). How many sons and daughters of the Church down the centuries have followed his example, from the first persecution in Jerusalem to the persecutions of the Roman emperors, to the multitudes of martyrs in our day! Indeed, even today we receive news from various parts of the world of missionaries, priests, Bishops, men and women religious and lay faithful who are persecuted, imprisoned, tortured, deprived of freedom or prevented from exercising it because they are disciples of Christ and apostles of the Gospel; at times, they even suffer and die for being in communion with the universal Church or for their fidelity to the Pope. Recalling the experience of the Vietnamese Martyr, Paul Le-Bao-Tinh (d. 1857) in my Encyclical Letter Spe Salvi (cf. n. 37), I noted that suffering is transformed into joy through the power of hope that comes from faith. The Christian martyr, like Christ and through union with him, "accepts it in his heart, and he transforms it into an action of love. What on the outside is simply brutal violence - the Crucifixion - from within becomes an act of total self-giving love.... Violence is transformed into love, and death into life" (World Youth Day 2005, Homily, Mass on Marienfeld Esplanade, Cologne, 21 August 2005; L'Osservatore Romano English edition, 24 August, p. 11). The Christian martyr brings about the victory of love over hatred and death.

Let us pray for those who suffer for being faithful to Christ and to his Church. May Mary Most Holy, Queen of Martyrs, help us to be credible Gospel witnesses, responding to our enemies with the disarming power of truth and charity.

[Pope Benedict, Angelus 26 December 2007]

Dearest brothers and sons!

It is dear to me to address you again today, who have gathered here for the Angelus prayer in the atmosphere so typical and intimate of holy Christmas. Today, in fact, Christmas continues its salutary and invigorating atmosphere, and our souls still breathe in it because of the sense of enduring wonder and amazement before the great event which has taken place and which, inexhaustible in its efficacy, is projected into the whole course of time. I mean the event or, more precisely, the mystery of the Son of God being born in Bethlehem as the Son of Man, to make himself our brother and saviour for us.

So august and unfathomable is this mystery that we cannot meditate on it enough. For this reason, the Church in her liturgical and catechetical wisdom proposes it to us every year, for a commemoration that extends over not a few days and is articulated in a special cycle that we call the 'Christmas liturgical cycle'.

2. And I wish to venerate with you St Stephen, the first Christian martyr, as the Church does on the day after the feast of Christmas.

"Yesterday we celebrated the temporal birth of our eternal king; today we celebrate the glorious passion of one of his soldiers. For yesterday our King, clothed in the noble robe of his flesh, coming forth from the palace of the virginal bosom, deigned to visit the world; today one of his soldiers, leaving the tent of the body, has ascended as a triumphant man into heaven'. These are the evocative expressions of a saint of the early Church, St Fulgentius (St Fulgentius, Sermo 3, 1), and they retain their meaning intact because they enucleate a relationship not only of liturgical continuity between the feast of Christmas and that of the protomartyr, but also, above all, of intrinsic connection in the order of holiness and grace. Christ, king of history and redeemer of man, stands at the centre of that journey towards perfection, to which he calls man, every man.

As we venerate St Stephen and his invincible example as a witness to Christ, as he showed himself by his spirited speech, by his concern for the service of the poor, by his constancy during his trial and, above all, by his heroic death, we see that his figure is illuminated and magnified in the light of his Lord and master, whom he wanted to follow in the supreme sacrifice. It is the Lord Jesus who alone provides the succour and comfort necessary for souls to be faithful unto death.

From this derives a valuable lesson for us: looking at Stephen in the perspective of Christmas, we must take up his example and his teaching, which univocally lead us back to Christ who, born in the cave of Bethlehem, is already on his way - in the final intention of the redemptive work - to the hill of Calvary. Made sons of God by him, called to live as sons of God, we too will be crowned like Stephen up there, in the homeland, if we are faithful.

[Pope John Paul II, Angelus 26 December 1980]

Today we celebrate the feast of Saint Stephen, the first martyr. The Book of the Acts of the Apostles tells us about him (cf. 6-7), and today’s liturgy presents him to us in the final moments of his life, when he is captured and stoned (cf. 6: 12; 7: 54-60). In the joyful climate of Christmas, this memory of the first Christian killed for the faith could appear out of place. However, precisely from the perspective of faith, today’s celebration is in tune with the true meaning of Christmas. In Stephen’s martyrdom, in fact, violence is defeated by love, death by life: at the hour of supreme witness, he contemplates the open heavens and grants forgiveness to his persecutors (cf. v. 60).

This young servant of the Gospel, full of the Holy Spirit, knew how to narrate Jesus in words, and above all with his life. Looking to him, we see the fulfilment of Jesus’ promise to His disciples: “When they deliver you over … what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you” (cf. Mt 10: 19-20). In the school of Saint Stephen, who became similar to his Master both in life and in death, we too set our gaze on Jesus, a faithful witness of the Father. We learn that the glory of Heaven, the glory that lasts for eternal life, is not made up of wealth and power, but of love and self-giving.

We need to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, “the founder and perfecter of our faith” (Heb 12: 2), to be able to give reason to the hope that was given to us (cf. 1 Pt 3: 15), through the challenges and trials that we must face daily. For us Christians, heaven is no longer distant, separate from earth: in Jesus, Heaven descended to earth. And thanks to Him, with the strength of the Holy Spirit, we can assume all that which is human and guide it towards Heaven. So may the first witness be precisely our way of being human, a way of life formed according to Jesus: gentle and courageous, humble and noble, non-violent.

Stephen was a deacon, one of the first seven deacons of the Church (cf. Acts 6: 1-6). He teaches us to proclaim Christ through gestures of fraternity and evangelical charity. His witness, culminating in martyrdom, is a source of inspiration for the renewal of our Christian communities. They are called to become increasingly missionary, all of them tending towards evangelization, determined to reach out to men and women in the existential and geographical peripheries, where there is a greater thirst for hope and salvation. Communities that do not follow the worldly logic, that do not put themselves, their own image, at the centre, but only the glory of God and the good of the people, especially the little ones and the poor.

The feast of this first martyr Stephen calls us to remember all the martyrs of yesterday and today – nowadays they are many! – to feel in communion with them, and to ask them for the grace to live and die with the name of Jesus in our hearts and on our lips. May Mary, Mother of the Redeemer, help us to live this Christmas time by fixing our gaze on Jesus, so that we may become more like Him every day.

[Pope Francis, Angelus 26 December 2019]

(Lk Christmas)

 

 

It would make no sense to put a cake filled with candles in front of the Nativity. We sing another Wonder: the discovery of a Treasure, hidden behind our dark sides.

Christmas is not an anniversary or birthday, but an event of Revelation of the divine Face: not absolute Sovereign, but poor naked and unarmed among ordinary people, lying on unclean place.

Do we feel "badly done"? We are on the right track - which is not that of the exasperated controls.

God did not "become superhuman", but «Flesh». Reality that the Father makes breathe, embraces and recovers - enlightens and doesn’t discard.

The meaning of Christmas is to let all the uncertain but unrepeatable implications of imperfection pass through us. Not like a fault.

"Weak" points and eccentricities will become strong points.

It takes unpredictable time to trace the way of growth - an unexpected path; and God accepts it.

Incarnation is an irruption of Eternity between our walls and crises: the dreaming Unexpected, that invests the suburbs and doesn’t place distances.

In the shepherds - who we are - the rough, alternate and impure, become priority appointees.

Strident judgment compared to the ephemeral authentic: that of ceremonial opinions.

It’s not an extrinsic redemption, aimed only for the misfits of society, of course. It concerns us.

Under the momentary rind of our "certain things" intrigues a seed that will make our new Child.

 

The inner Jesus wants to be nursed, guarded, nourished, so that he may grow according to an intimate Drawing, a process of sacred (but unprotected) Exodus that saves.

Mystery that’s not at natural external reach, because in tune with the Call by Name, with its unique innate, multifaceted, vital character - which should not be extinguished.

The development of emotions, inclinations and passions, of our Roots, should not be disturbed by weights of thought, by cloaks of habits, or conditioning.

[Even accelerations hinder evolution: e.g. the desire to deal with insufficiency, in order to solve it immediately].

In general, it harms the battle we set up with ourselves to be accepted - by conforming to the outline.

So the commitment is to sit in an armor that doesn’t belong to us.

Day after day a Flame is giving birth to another and different Infant - in appearance contradictory, unbalanced, unsteady, dented.

This vigorous adolescent doesn’t enjoy lacerating programs, but an awareness of Faith: the Creator wants to walk-with our discrepancies.

There is an intimate Jesus, perhaps not yet weaned: he smiles at us calmly and with open arms.

There is no truth more beautiful than in the vertigo of being able to give birth and express the hidden Little that each one is in the soul’s face.

 

In his last Christmas Vigil, Paul VI wanted to emphasize that in the arrival of the Logos «Everyone can say: for me!».

May this Time help us to understand this personal dimension; we are not the ones who have to fight against ourselves.

For a Christmas that is already Easter. The punctured cocoon will make our butterfly.

Mary, the Art of Perception that breaks the mould

(Lk 2:19) (Lk 1:26-38)

 

For a life from the authentic self to the unknown Apex

 

"Now, Mary kept and treasured all - really all - these event-words, putting them together and comparing them in her heart" [sense of the Greek text].

What about her, her Son, and all the others?

He wanted to understand the essential affinities - with the soul and elsewhere: the meaning of the strange and simple happenings. Golden rule for us too.

In the portrait of Jesus suckling, his silence did not linger - and he did not allow himself to be demotivated: he dug.

That is why he knew far more expressive things than many minds - sublime and yet incapable of breaking out of automatisms, already flooded with remarkable doctrines and traditions.

We are gladly there too, with Mary; in a culture that invades our senses and pollutes our souls with noisy opinions, with models that are apparently eloquent but which bring us to our knees: stressful and futile.

All emphatic, impactful reproductions - but external.

Yet they overflow into the innermost, and despite glittering appearances, lock the personality into a confined space of unhealthy habits, only to be exhibited.

In fact, we force ourselves to run from one side to the other, often acting out prototypes. Precisely, forcibly intrigued by plans, organigrams and thoughts, even devout ones, which however become forms of personal and social trivialisation.

We are becoming accustomed to the fear of our discreet, reserved, non-gossipy, secluded, hidden side, all our own and close to the Source: in a word, guardian of the Calling by Name - which wants to pause to return to the ancient Listening of the new.

A side we do not yet know: it never has the same tone as always. It is all our own, but it alludes to real encounters.

By sharpening our inner vision, we grasp our source and the meaning of history; and its folds - so we can still give birth to the precious world inside and outside us.

We do this from the intangible that pivots the essence. And guards the Fire within.

 

For a stretch - ever so briefly - the official pundits delude us that we are at the centre of the world.

They want to inoculate us with a false sense of prominence and permanence that quickly fades away; in reality, they overwhelm us.

We feel the need for a rediscovery of being and essence, not dissolved in the realm of night and illusion [to have power appear, to hold back rise dominate]. Without escapes, nor rhythms that do not belong to us.

We seek involvement, and distance.

We want to 'perceive' like Mary and like the shepherds - disconcerted by others' religious views - to become and be reborn, and to become again. Recovering the frenzies, the surprises, the wounds; without dispersing the centre.

 

"Taking refuge" in a secret space was not for her a rediscovery of the self expected by all, stereotypical and adequate as always.

Rather, she was expressing her being - escaping from conventional ways.

In order to live intensely, she did not wish to enter the nomenclature - then to be normal, and subservient - rather to get away from it, but to stay there. So she did not exclude anything.

She also recognised herself in those vagabonds.

Never would she have imagined herself the (acting) protagonist of a tradition that placed her on pedestals, forms, solemn attributes, and constraints - the very ones that would have made her sweetly but decisively rebellious.

She did not revisit herself to bask in it, but to verify and reactivate her 'way' - which she did not want to lose: it could be overwhelmed by external opinions and buried by [impelling but horizonless] circumstances.

She did not want to lose her address within common, homologated goals, losing sight of what she really was, and introduce her into the sky of the timeless - nor did she want to resemble the majority, or be above them.

The one we built for her was not her home.

Mary did not look out into reality and into us today [to help us look at 'our' Mystery] with a conformist face; sweetened and artefactual, or intimist, swampy.

 

His soul was always on the move. To know the unknowable, she would never stop - even without knowing in advance where to go.

Her character did not want the certainties of accommodation. Without wavering, even within herself she preferred to intuit and live the Passion of love.

He allowed himself to be guided and saved, but from his own sacred centre, sanctuary of the God-Con. He who unlocks, sets us free.

He could not allow his Vocation to be covered by idols, nor by any plot, which was nevertheless unfolding.

In the 'here and now' he found his affinity from his very being as a wayfarer, who by advancing put hardship behind him.

As she developed her inner eye, she also transmuted her inner self to find the step of the Annunciation hidden in the misfits, which still led her on.

Only this lasted her through the years - not the functional side.She did not dream of a quiet life, but of understanding her personal mission.

 

Without naivety, she wondered about the meaning of intimate callings, happenings, and her own motions - alien only to the anxiety of pleasing everyone.

She wished to understand how best to fit in, moving towards the new promised land [cf. Lk 1:29: "But she was greatly troubled by the Word and wondered what greeting this was"; Lk 1:34: "How shall this be?"].

The stillness within was not uniform, but filled with the vicissitudes and unpredictable 'news'.

Never to become a model: an expired identity document - plastered, dogmatic. Never an icon of privilege, and ostentatious - like a woman who extinguishes her consciousness, and makes herself identified, empty, disjointed.

In the midst of others - even the lazy, indiscreet ones - Maria let herself be, perceiving the inaudible sounds of the silence of the soul.

Notes that produced her figure and - even better - her evolution and Destination, without disturbing her with separate intentions.

Removing the gaze from conformist intention.

 

To really exist, intensely, she changed or broke through; she recovered history but listened to the inside of herself.

Grasping her own deep layers, perceiving herself in her innermost voices, she became aware of the meaning of her life, and of the unfolding story. 

In the intervals of thought, he reactivated the energy of the 'gaze'.

And without mortification, he would bring his attention to another dimension, gradually entering the Wind that ceaselessly disengaged it.

In this way, he learnt not to expect something aligned with normal intentions and predictions, nor with social and cultural rankings: he had to enter into the events, and detach himself (to contemplate their importance and depth).

Mysteriously - thus scrutinising without doing too much - he read the 'notes', chose the right registers; he interpreted the score.

Epiphany of God in a creature utterly devoid of hieratic or courtly style; rather, delicate and gypsy.

She did not rush to put things in place: she sensed 'inside' the summary life, rather than leading it and organising it, or arranging it.

She waited for her eminent self to lead the strange, non-directed, non-voluntarist path that was unfolding, truly all eccentric and unexemplary.

 

She did not act to please.

We also learn in her: to see the domestic God happen, the 'visits' we would not expect; the intensity of different colours.

They then lead us to a different look into the soul too; involved and detached.

Like the surrounding reality, Maria was not always the same.

She did not have in mind a champion to be pursued to the end, only to find herself chronicled in the exemplarity of others - uprooted, external, dissipated and discharged.

Situations and emotions had value, not only and not primarily on the basis of the - now useless - paradigm register with which they were interpreted.

In the hope of things present and in their sensitive listening, they were acquiring fluidity.

In this way, it passed unforced from the religion of the fathers to the Faith, to the risk of friendship in the unpredictable proposal of the one Father.

Retreating into the Abode of the Spirit, within a Hope that unveiled itself wave by wave, she learned to understand relationships and inner energies, unpacked.

Once heard and taken in, they could deviate, and take just the unexpected path.

 

Step by step, the attentive eye, ear and heart also introduce us - like Mary - into a territory of suspension of closed intentions. Where the love and destiny of the Newness of God dwells.

He expands the Vision not just from around.

By deploying his losing himself in the We, not selectively, but only from his own sacred centre, the horizon also expanded in the sensation of infinity in action.

In the contemplation of events, she would flesh out and even reinvent the figure of the heart that had guided her there.

She was still reinterpreting the expressive image of her Vocation. And she changed her destiny - giving no weight to one-sided angles.

No obligations and chiselled intentions - against the tide but natural, without the laceration of titanic efforts.

So even the hardships brought her closer to her Mission as Mother of the new humanity, in her Son.

 

And each one equally rediscovers the energy of the primordial suggestion that leads him, so that in Meditation he re-embraces the Calling that still wants to snatch him from the mire.

Echo of the primordial Call that is woven into the events and is already the Destination.

Witness every moment to be rediscovered in the "intimate and full void" to be made within, to wait for something we do not know what it is first.

Mary let herself be traced in time by Love without a patent.

Such are the Dreams of creatures totally immersed in the true passions, which grasp, anticipate and actualise the timelessness in time.She did not give up wondering what - with its many aspects - was inhabiting her and silently guiding her.

 

We still imagine her (v.19) 'as with eyes closed': a situation our culture often ignores.

She did not think of the efficient causes: it was to rediscover otherwise her opening the door to visitors, and to every new thing by astonishment.

She was already nursing, not only her Son; at the same time she was feeding herself.

Not out of vain intimism did she rediscover the subtle Mystery nested in the different - and the raw, changing - unpredictable within and without.

Without realising it, she was already nourishing the world, preserving herself.

True, she comes to us and in us, tending the nest of essence and history... without any appearance of banners and shop windows - respecting only what happens.

Similarly, his entire Family becomes the true fruitful lady of an impossible Feast of the Announcement around - which we do not understand where it came from (Lk 1:20).

Certainly from nothing external. Therefore decisive.

Totally adherent to the circumstances and present in himself, he became completely - in the clear and spontaneous movements, also of others.

 

Certainly he had no people around him who could boast of screens. Only strange individuals, but who ceaselessly let their vital instincts emerge.

They too did not tell each other beforehand where to go. That is why they found themselves in an incessant pregnancy.

All they had in store was the experience of distance; often frost and rejection. 

Never knew a figure who helped them to recognise themselves completely, and to look at things from the point of view of the timeless gentleness they discovered.

Even capable of tending to the wider and more inclusive global [we would say, to the helpful eternity of the angelic condition].

Instead, they are set ablaze by the everlasting Flame - that of the whole world (past, present and future) that knows how to recover and stand hidden, apart but in the cosmos - as the dawn and day of the Lord.

In the culture of the time, the condition of the spirits of the heavenly throne service, who glorified and praised God (v.20) "for all that they had heard and seen".

 

Faced with the domestic Church Family, in Mary and Jesus the shepherds have a decisive experience.

No longer of one-sided lack and judgement, but of rebirth in esteem; of another world, available and inclusive - of another kingdom, unison without uniformity.

The Mother of God is a possibility to strive for the eternal present, no longer exclusive: but like a dance, where the changing whole puts one perfectly at ease - with no tracks to retrace.

Society's oddballs, pilgrims and prairie dogs, skilled only in transhumance, had perhaps never had the ability to recognise the ecstasy of being well and intensely in the brief.

Perhaps they had never had the experience of recognising in an accurate creature their own sensitive, tender and feminine side.

Appearance that in the authentic Woman Church becomes the guardian and differently announcer [in the shaky] of the treasure chest of Life.

From the warmth of Mary and the Cradle, amidst their labyrinths, they now bring to their own secluded place an exciting blessing, and the indestructible intimate side; even elsewhere.

To question us too.

 

We seek a silent soul, for an art of rebirth.

Here was Maria: she had noticed, as she meditated, that others reflexively did too.

When she carved out preparatory energies, even those around her disposed themselves in a more balanced, fuller way to the Announcement.

He walked through life to guard and nurture new fathers and mothers of humanisation. 

Not to comment, but to intuit and dissolve; not to extinguish the dreaming side with the 'up to date', old side.

His realm of truthfulness that cures the I and the Thou was the heaven and earth of new powers.

Reliable virtues because they sprang from the Silence of the Way that was completely renewing her - loving contradictions. 

Because everything can now happen, regenerate; and each day bring its tide (of the unseen) in the presence of Spirit, without routine.

A genuine soul, devoid of pretense, can do it.

For an adventure that pushes away continuity, filled with foundational Eros; for a direct exploration to the unknown Culmination.

 

 

Maria: Slowing down a little, one is born

 

Whoever does not follow innate intuition, a more radical call of the self, or stunning proclamations [Lk 1:26-38. 2:8-15] does not develop his destiny, does not move; does not set things right.

Common proclamations end up incinerating personalities.

It is true that the shepherds find nothing extraordinary or prodigious, except a family reduced to an ordinary condition, which they know.

But it is that simple hearth that draws them into the new Project, and into the proclamation of its scandalous unconditional Mercy - which did not electrocute them for impurity.

Archaic religion had branded them forever: lost, despicable, remorseless beings. Now they are free from identification.They have another eye - like that of the first time. An eye that will take them one hundred per cent.

Exodus facing a helpless image of God, they do not bother to engage in ethical discipline: it would have crumbled them.

Rather, they enjoy the wonder of a simply human reality - in a mysterious relationship of mutual recognition.

 

A baby in a manger, an unclean place where beasts would play.

Strange that the modest sign convinces them, that it makes them regain esteem, and makes them evangelisers - perhaps not even assiduous evangelisers.

Like Calvary (to which it refers), the Resolute Manifestation of the Eternal is a paradox.

But the affective geography of this Bethlehem devoid of conformist circuits remains intact, because it is spontaneously rooted in us.

There is a sense of immediacy, without any particular entanglement or ceremony.

The Child is not even worshipped by the now 'pure' gazes of the little, vilified prairie dogs and transhumance - as, conversely, the Magi will do (Mt 2:11).

They did not even know what it meant, reflecting Eastern court ceremonials - like the kissing of red slippers.

[This is why Pope Francis rejected them, along with the ermine - after Paul VI had had the courage to lay down the pluridirigist sign of tiaras, with its three overlapping crowns; a little more intricate was the affair of the anachronistic gestatorial chair].

The wretched of the earth and the distant of the flocks are those who hear the Announcement, readily verify it, and found the new divine lineage.

People untroubled by static judgement - men in the midst of all; no longer at high altitude.

 

In the meantime, Mary sought the meaning of surprises and thus regenerated, for a new way of understanding and 'being' together - to give birth also to the inner world of a different people of fullness.

She would put facts and Word together, to discover the common thread.

And to remain receptive; not to be conditioned by the convictions of the devout and inflexible fences, which would give her no escape.

The Mother herself, though taken by surprise, prepared herself for God's eccentricity, without departing from time and her real condition.

 

Her figure and that of the shepherds question us, demand the courage of an answer - but after having allowed the same kind of inner Presences to flow: worthy visitors, who are allowed to express themselves.

 

Like us, you too had to move from the beliefs of the fathers to Faith in the Father.

From the idea of love as reward to that of 'gift'.

From the practice of cults and closures that do not make one at all intimate with the Eternal, to the opening of the mind and of the exits.

He did not achieve this without effort, but rather by enduring the resistance of his arid environment.

Jesus was indeed circumcised - a useless rite that according to custom claimed to change the Son of God into the son of Abraham.

 

The Good News proclaims a reversal: what religion had considered distant from the Most High is very close to Him; indeed, it corresponds fully to Him.

Never before imagined.

In the Annunciations of the Gospels, the adventure of Faith is opened wide.

And the new Child has a Name that expresses the unprecedented essence of Saviour, not executioner.

His whole story will also be fully instructive from the point of view of how to internalise uncertainties and discomforts: these "no moments" and precariousness that teach us how to live.

In fact, we too, like Mary, 'recognise' the presence of God in the enigmas of Scripture, in the Little One 'wrapped in bandages' - even in the ancestral echo of our inner worlds.

And we let ourselves go - we don't really know where. But so is the Infinite, the immense Secret, the inexplicable Breath, in its folds.

 

The wise Dream that inhabits the human knows of ancient humus, but its echo is reborn every day, in the tide of being that directs one to truly 'look', without veils.

A conformist demeanour of 'seeing things' would not solve the problem.

Sometimes, in order not to be conditioned, it is necessary to re-establish oneself in silence, like the Virgin; to build a sort of hermeneutic island that opens different doors, that introduces other lights.

Within her sacred circuit, the Mother of God also valorised innate transformative energies, precisely by rooting them in questions...

Thus returning to her primordial being and the sense of the Newborn Child - an image steeped in primordial meaning and life-wave, dear to many cultures.

 

Mary entered an Elsewhere and did not leave the field of the real.

She was 'inside' her Centre, unhurried - searching for the Sun drowned in her being and which returned, emerged, resurrected; from within, it made her exist beyond.

Thus she did not allow herself to be absorbed in energy by the conformist ideas of others or by [external] situations that wanted to break the balance.

In her veracious solitude - filled with Grace - that higher and hidden self in essence came more and more to her. She made herself a new Dawn and guide.She did not want to live within thoughts, knowledge and reasoning around - none capable of amplifying life - all in the hands of the drugs of procedures, dehumanising the Enchantment.

The happy magic of that Frugolo of flesh brought his Peace.

Dreams sustained and conveyed her nest and intimate core - causing new life to flow from the core of her Person, and the youth of the world.

 

"Now Mary kept all Words-events by comparing them in her heart".

(Lk Christmas)

 

When the weaver

When the weaver raises one foot, the other one lowers. When the movement ceases and one of the feet stops, the weaving stops. His hands throw the bobbin that passes from one to the other; but no hand can hope to hold it. Like the weaver's gestures, it is the union of opposites that weaves our lives [Peul Oral Tradition].

 

It would make no sense to put a cake stuffed with candles, in front of the Crib. We would be praising another Wonder: the discovery of a Treasure, hidden behind our dark sides.

Christmas is not an anniversary or birthday, but an event of Revelation of the divine Face: not absolute Master, but poor naked and unharmed among ordinary people, lying on unclean ground.

Do we feel 'wronged'? We are on the right path - which is not that of exaggerated control.

God did not 'become superman', but 'Flesh': a term that in the Semitic world describes our totality as transient, vulnerable, transient beings, subject to all forms of death.

Realities that the Father makes breathe, embraces and recovers - enlightens and does not discard.

 

If the life we lead is already balanced in the environment, we become habitual; green things in gestation abort.

When we slumber, what then beats in our heads are the usual idols: weights of conditioned reason, calculations and fixations, together with problems of perhaps unhappy events.

With such a burden, we forget what we are led to.

We overlook the vital characteristic: our child wants to come into the light and is a unique being, more than rare.

 

The meaning of Christmas is to surrender; to lay aside the ancient religious idea: rather, to let all the uncertain but unrepeatable implications of imperfection pass through us.

Not as a fault.

It is the logic of every process of activation and development, with its pauses and recoveries, losses and recoveries. The 'weak' points and eccentricities will become strengths.

There is a need for unpredictable time, to chart the path of growth - an unexpected path; and God accepts it.

Incarnation is an irruption of Eternity between our walls and crises, a dreaming Imprevent that invades the peripheries and places no distance.

 

In the shepherds - who are us - Lk brings all the outcasts of history into the field, making them owners, without any merit.

They were the despised and doomed; they are the first to whom the Announcement is addressed. Maxims to experience the Face of the God-Con; astounded by the trust the Father bestows.

The crude, substitutes and impure, become priority appointees.

Strident judgement compared to authentic ephemerality: that of ceremonial opinions.

This is not an extrinsic redemption, aimed only at society's misfits, mind you. It concerns us.

Beneath the momentary bark of our 'certain things' brims a seed that will make our new Bimbo.

 

The inner Jesus wants to be nursed, guarded, nurtured, so that he can grow according to an intimate Design, a sacred (but unprotected) Exodus process that saves.

Mystery that is not at natural external reach, because it is in tune with the Calling by Name, with the unrepeatable innate, even multifaceted vital character - which is not to be extinguished.

The development of emotions, of inclinations and passions, of our Roots, is not to be disturbed by tares of thought, by cloaks of habit, or conditioning.

[Even accelerations hinder evolution: e.g. the desire to confront insufficiency, in order to resolve it immediately].

In general, it harms the battle we set up with ourselves to be accepted - conforming to the contour.

But so the commitment is to sit in armour that does not belong to us.

Day after day, a Flame is giving birth to another and different Infant - seemingly contradictory, unbalanced, shaky, pockmarked.

This vigorous Infant does not enjoy lacerating programmes, but an awareness of Faith: the Creator wants to walk with our dissimilarities.

There is an intimate Jesus, perhaps not yet weaned: he smiles at us serenely and with open arms.

 

The unveiling of the authentic God distracts us from the entangled idea we have of the world, of the tangle of events, and of our own person.

It gives us a clearer gaze, less focused on the outside.

 

Christmas makes us realise that we are not a swamp covered in failures, harassment, petty judgements, wrongs, disappointments, abandonments, betrayals.

In the Lord who wants to continue incarnating, our burdens go away like a breath.

The soul becomes free again and unfolds wings that are developed and strong; incomparable.

 

There is no more beautiful truth than in the vertigo of being able to give birth to and express the hidden Little One that each one is in the face of the soul.

 

In his last Christmas Vigil, Paul VI was keen to emphasise that in the arrival of the Word "Each one can say: for me!".

Let this Season help us to understand this personal dimension; we are not those who have to fight against ourselves.

For a Christmas that is already Easter. The pierced cocoon will make our Butterfly. 

 

 

Eve, Night, Dawn, Day: genealogy, today is born for you, the shepherds found, the Logos became flesh

 

Genealogy

Dear brothers and sisters in Rome and throughout the world!

Christ is born for us! Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth to the people he loves. May the echo of the proclamation of Bethlehem, which the Catholic Church makes resound in all continents, beyond all boundaries of nationality, language and culture, reach everyone. The Son of the Virgin Mary is born for all, he is the Saviour of all.

Thus an ancient liturgical antiphon invokes him: 'O Emmanuel, our King and Lawgiver, hope and salvation of the peoples: come and save us, O Lord our God. Veni ad salvandum nos! Come and save us! This is the cry of the man of all times, who feels he cannot make it alone to overcome difficulties and dangers. He needs to put his hand in a greater and stronger hand, a hand that reaches out to him from on high. Dear brothers and sisters, this hand is Christ, born in Bethlehem of the Virgin Mary. He is the hand that God stretched out to humanity, to bring it out of the quicksand of sin and set it on the rock, the firm rock of his Truth and Love (cf. Ps 40:3).

Yes, this is what the name of that Child means, the name that, by God's will, Mary and Joseph gave him: his name is Jesus, which means "Saviour" (cf. Mt 1:21; Lk 1:31). He was sent by God the Father to save us above all from the deep evil, rooted in man and history: that evil that is separation from God, the presumptuous pride of doing one's own thing, of competing with God and replacing Him, of deciding what is good and what is evil, of being the master of life and death (cf. Gen 3:1-7). This is the great evil, the great sin, from which we men cannot save ourselves except by relying on God's help, except by crying out to Him: "Veni ad salvandum nos! - Come and save us!".

The very fact of raising this invocation to Heaven already puts us in the right position, puts us in the truth of ourselves: for we are those who have cried out to God and have been saved (cf. Esth [Greek] 10:3f). God is the Saviour, we the ones in danger. He is the physician, we the sick. Recognising Him, is the first step towards salvation, towards getting out of the labyrinth in which we ourselves shut ourselves up with our pride. Lifting our eyes to Heaven, stretching out our hands and calling for help is the way out, provided there is Someone who listens, and who can come to our rescue.

Jesus Christ is proof that God has heard our cry. Not only that! God has such a strong love for us that He cannot remain in Himself, that He comes out of Himself and comes into us, sharing our condition to the full (cf. Ex 3:7-12). The response God gave in Jesus to the cry of man infinitely exceeds our expectation, reaching such solidarity that it cannot be only human, but divine. Only the God who is love and the love that is God could choose to save us through this path, which is certainly the longest, but it is the one that respects his and our truth: the path of reconciliation, of dialogue, of collaboration.

Therefore, dear brothers and sisters in Rome and throughout the world, on this Christmas 2011, let us turn to the Child of Bethlehem, to the Son of the Virgin Mary, and say: "Come and save us!" We repeat this in spiritual union with so many people in particularly difficult situations, and as the voice of the voiceless.

Together we invoke divine succour for the peoples of the Horn of Africa, who suffer from hunger and famine, sometimes aggravated by a persistent state of insecurity. May the international community not fail to help the many refugees from that region, who are sorely tried in their dignity.

May the Lord bring comfort to the peoples of South-East Asia, particularly of Thailand and the Philippines, who are still in grave distress as a result of the recent floods.

May the Lord come to the aid of humanity wounded by the many conflicts, which still today stain the planet with blood. May he, who is the Prince of Peace, grant peace and stability to the Land he has chosen to come into the world, and encourage the resumption of dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians. Bring an end to the violence in Syria, where so much blood has already been shed. Promote full reconciliation and stability in Iraq and Afghanistan. Grant renewed vigour in building the common good to all parts of society in North African and Middle Eastern countries.

May the birth of the Saviour sustain the prospects for dialogue and cooperation in Myanmar, in the search for shared solutions. May the birth of the Redeemer grant political stability to the countries of the African Great Lakes Region and assist the efforts of the people of South Sudan to protect the rights of all citizens. 

Dear brothers and sisters, let us turn our gaze to the Grotto of Bethlehem: the Child we contemplate is our salvation! He has brought the world a universal message of reconciliation and peace. Let us open our hearts to him, let us welcome him into our lives. Let us repeat to Him with confidence and hope: "Veni ad salvandum nos!"

[Pope Benedict, Urbi et Orbi Message 25 December 2011].

 

Today he is born for you

Dear brothers and sisters,

"A child has been born for us, a son has been given to us" (Is 9:5). What Isaiah, looking far into the future, says to Israel as consolation in its anguish and darkness, the Angel, from which emanates a cloud of light, announces to the shepherds as present: "Today, in the city of David, a Saviour is born for you, who is Christ the Lord" (Lk 2:11). The Lord is present. From this moment, God is truly a "God with us". He is no longer the distant God, who, through creation and through consciousness, can somehow be sensed from afar. He has entered the world. He is the Near. The risen Christ has said this to his own, to us: "Behold, I am with you always, to the close of the age" (Matthew 28: 20). For you the Saviour is born: what the Angel announced to the shepherds, God now recalls to us through the Gospel and its messengers. This is news that cannot leave us indifferent. If it is true, everything has changed. If it is true, it concerns me too. Then, like the shepherds, I too must say: Come on, I want to go to Bethlehem and see the Word that happened there. The Gospel does not tell us the story of the shepherds without purpose. They show us how to respond in the right way to the message that is also addressed to us. What then do these first witnesses of God's incarnation tell us?

First of all, it is said of the shepherds that they were vigilant people and that the message could reach them precisely because they were awake. We must wake up, for the message to reach us. We must become truly vigilant people. What does this mean? The difference between one who dreams and one who is awake consists first of all in the fact that the one who dreams is in a particular world. He is enclosed with his self in this dream world that is his alone and does not connect him with others. Waking up means leaving this particular world of the self and entering into the common reality, into the truth that, alone, unites us all. Conflict in the world, mutual irreconcilability, stems from the fact that we are enclosed in our own interests and personal opinions, in our own tiny private world. Selfishness, that of the group as well as the individual, keeps us prisoners of our own interests and desires, which conflict with the truth and divide us from one another. Wake up, the Gospel tells us. Come out into the great common truth, into the communion of the one God. To wake up thus means to develop sensitivity for God; for the silent signs with which He wants to guide us; for the many signs of His presence. There are people who say that they are 'religiously devoid of a musical ear'. The perceptive capacity for God seems almost a dowry that is denied to some. And indeed - our way of thinking and acting, the mentality of today's world, the range of our various experiences are apt to reduce our sensitivity for God, to make us 'devoid of a musical ear' for Him. And yet in every soul is present, in a hidden or open way, the expectation of God, the capacity to encounter Him. To achieve this vigilance, this awakening to the essential, we want to pray, for ourselves and for others, for those who seem to be "devoid of this musical ear" and in whom, nevertheless, the desire for God to manifest Himself is alive. The great theologian Origen said: If I had the grace to see as Paul saw, I could now (during the Liturgy) contemplate a great host of angels (cf. Lk 23:9). Indeed - in the Sacred Liturgy, the Angels of God and the Saints surround us. The Lord himself is present in our midst. Lord, open the eyes of our hearts, that we may become vigilant and visionary, and thus be able to bring your nearness to others!

Let us return to the Christmas Gospel. It tells us that the shepherds, having heard the Angel's message, said to one another: "'Let us go up to Bethlehem' ... They went, without delay" (Lk 2:15f.). "They hastened" says the Greek text literally. What had been announced to them was so important that they had to go immediately. In fact, what they had been told there was totally beyond the ordinary. It changed the world. The Saviour was born. The long-awaited Son of David came into the world in his own city. What could have been more important? Of course, they were also driven by curiosity, but above all by excitement about the great thing that had been communicated to them, the little ones and seemingly unimportant men. They hurried - without delay. In our ordinary life things are not like that. The majority of men do not consider the things of God to be a priority, they do not immediately press upon us. And so we, in the vast majority, are quite willing to put them off. First we do what appears urgent here and now. In the list of priorities, God is often found almost at the last place. This - one thinks - can always be done. The Gospel tells us: God has top priority. If something in our lives deserves to be hurried without delay, it is, then, God's cause alone. A maxim of the Rule of St Benedict says: 'Put nothing before the work of God (i.e. the divine office)'. The liturgy is the first priority for monks. Everything else comes next. At its core, however, this phrase applies to every man. God is important, the most important reality in our lives. It is precisely this priority that the shepherds teach us. From them we want to learn not to let ourselves be crushed by all the urgent things of everyday life. From them we want to learn the inner freedom to put other occupations - however important they may be - on the back burner in order to move towards God, to let Him into our lives and our time. Time committed to God and, from Him, to our neighbour is never time wasted. It is the time in which we truly live, in which we live the very being of human persons.

Some commentators point out that first the shepherds, the simple souls, came to Jesus in the manger and were able to meet the Redeemer of the world. The wise men who came from the East, the representatives of those with rank and name, came much later. The commentators add: this is quite obvious. The shepherds, in fact, lived next door. They only had to "cross" (cf. Lk 2:15) as one crosses a short space to go to one's neighbours. The wise, on the other hand, lived far away. They had to travel a long and difficult way to Bethlehem. And they needed guidance and direction. Well, even today there are simple and humble souls who live very close to the Lord. They are, so to speak, His neighbours and can easily go to Him. But most of us modern men live far from Jesus Christ, from the One who became man, from the God who came among us. We live in philosophies, affairs and occupations that fill us up completely and from which the path to the manger is very long. In many ways, God must repeatedly push us and give us a hand, so that we can find our way out of the tangle of our thoughts and our busyness and find our way to Him. But for everyone there is a way. For everyone the Lord has signs that are suitable for each one. He calls all of us, so that we too can say: Come, let us "cross over", let us go to Bethlehem - to that God, who has come to meet us. Yes, God has come towards us. Alone we could not reach Him. The way is beyond our strength. But God has descended. He comes to meet us. He has travelled the longest part of the way. Now He asks us: Come and see how much I love you. Come and see that I am here. Transeamus usque Bethleem, says the Latin Bible. Let us go beyond! Let us go beyond ourselves! Let us be wayfarers to God in many ways: in being inwardly on our way to Him. And yet also in very concrete ways - in the liturgy of the Church, in service to our neighbour, where Christ is waiting for me.

Let us again listen directly to the Gospel. The shepherds tell each other why they are setting out: "Let us see this event". Literally the Greek text says: "We see this Word, which happened there". Yes, such is the novelty of this night: the Word can be seen. For it has become flesh. That God of whom no image is to be made, because any image could only reduce him, indeed misrepresent him, that God has made himself, Himself, visible in the One who is his true image, as Paul says (cf. 2 Cor 4:4; Col 1:15). In the figure of Jesus Christ, in all his living and working, in his dying and rising, we can see the Word of God and thus the mystery of the living God himself. God is like this. The Angel had said to the shepherds: "This is the sign for you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger" (Lk 2:12; cf. 16). God's sign, the sign given to the shepherds and to us, is not an exciting miracle. The sign of God is His humility. The sign of God is that He makes Himself small; He becomes a child; He lets Himself be touched and asks for our love. How we men long for a different, imposing, irrefutable sign of God's power and greatness. But his sign invites us to faith and love, and therefore gives us hope: this is how God is. He possesses power and He is Goodness. He invites us to become like Him. Yes, we become like God, if we let ourselves be moulded by this sign; if we learn, ourselves, humility and thus true greatness; if we renounce violence and use only the weapons of truth and love. Origen, following a word of John the Baptist, saw the essence of paganism expressed in the symbol of the stones: paganism is a lack of sensitivity, it means a heart of stone, which is incapable of loving and perceiving God's love. Origen says of pagans: "Devoid of feeling and reason, they turn into stones and wood" (in Lk 22:9). Christ, however, wants to give us a heart of flesh. When we see Him, the God who became a child, our hearts are opened. In the Liturgy of the Holy Night, God comes to us as man, so that we may become truly human. Let us listen to Origen again: "Indeed, what would it profit you that Christ once came in the flesh, if He does not come to your soul? Let us pray that He may come to us daily and that we may say: I live, but I no longer live, but Christ lives in me (Gal 2:20)" (in Lk 22:3).

Yes, for this we want to pray on this Holy Night. Lord Jesus Christ, you who were born in Bethlehem, come to us! Enter into me, into my soul. Transform me. Renew me. Make me and all of us from stone and wood into living persons, in whom your love becomes present and the world is transformed. Amen.

[Pope Benedict, Homily of the Night 24 December 2009].

 

The shepherds found

"A holy day has dawned for us: come all to worship the Lord; today a splendid light has descended upon the earth" (Christmas Day Mass, Gospel Acclamation).

Dear brothers and sisters! "A holy day has dawned for us. A day of great hope: today the Saviour of mankind has been born! The birth of a child normally brings a light of hope to those who anxiously await it. When Jesus was born in the cave of Bethlehem, a 'great light' appeared on earth; a great hope entered the hearts of those who awaited him: 'lux magna', sings the liturgy of this Christmas Day. It was certainly not 'great' in the manner of this world, for it was first seen only by Mary, Joseph and a few shepherds, then by the Magi, old Simeon, the prophetess Anna: those whom God had chosen. And yet, in the concealment and silence of that holy night, a splendid and timeless light was kindled for every man; the great hope bringing happiness came into the world: "the Word became flesh and we have seen his glory" (Jn 1:14)

"God is light," says St John, "and in him there is no darkness" (1 John 1:5). In the Book of Genesis we read that when the universe originated, "the earth was formless and deserted and darkness covered the abyss". "God said, 'Let there be light!' And the light was" (Gen 1:2-3). The creative Word of God is Light, the source of life. Everything was made through the Logos and without Him nothing was made of everything that exists (cf. Jn 1:3). That is why all creatures are fundamentally good, and bear within themselves the imprint of God, a spark of His light. However, when Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary, Light itself came into the world: "God from God, Light from Light", we profess in the Creed. In Jesus, God took on what was not and remained what He was: "omnipotence entered into an infant body and was not removed from the government of the universe" (cf. Augustine, Serm 184, 1 on Christmas). He who is the creator of man became man in order to bring peace to the world. That is why, on Christmas night, the hosts of Angels sing: "Glory to God in the highest / and peace on earth to men whom he loves" (Lk 2:14).

"Today a splendid light has descended upon the earth". The Light of Christ is the bearer of peace. At the night Mass, the Eucharistic liturgy opened with precisely this hymn: "Today true peace has descended to us from heaven" (Entrance Antiphon). Indeed, only the "great" light that appeared in Christ can give men "true" peace: that is why every generation is called to welcome it, to welcome the God who became one of us in Bethlehem.

This is Christmas! A historical event and mystery of love, which for over two thousand years has challenged men and women of every age and place. It is the holy day on which the "great light" of Christ, bearer of peace, shines forth! Of course, to recognise it, to welcome it requires faith, it requires humility. The humility of Mary, who believed the word of the Lord, and was the first to adore, bent over the manger, the Fruit of her womb; the humility of Joseph, a righteous man, who had the courage of faith and preferred to obey God rather than protect his own reputation; the humility of the shepherds, the poor and anonymous shepherds, who welcomed the announcement of the heavenly messenger and hurried to the cave where they found the newborn child and, filled with astonishment, adored it, praising God (cf. Lk 2:15-20). The little ones, the poor in spirit: these are the protagonists of Christmas, yesterday and today; the protagonists of God's history, the tireless builders of his Kingdom of justice, love and peace.

In the silence of the night in Bethlehem Jesus was born and was welcomed by caring hands. And now, at this Christmas of ours, when the joyful announcement of his redemptive birth continues to resound, who is ready to open the door of their hearts to him? Men and women of our age, to us too Christ comes to bring light, to us too he comes to give peace! But who keeps watch, in the night of doubt and uncertainty, with an awake and prayerful heart? Who waits for the dawn of the new day, keeping the flame of faith burning? Who has time to listen to his word and allow himself to be enveloped by the charm of his love? Yes! It is for all his message of peace; it is to all that he comes to offer himself as a sure hope of salvation.

May the light of Christ, who comes to enlighten every human being, finally shine forth, and be consolation for those who find themselves in the darkness of misery, injustice, war; for those who are still denied their legitimate aspiration to a more secure livelihood, health, education, stable employment, a fuller participation in civic and political responsibilities, free from all oppression and sheltered from conditions that offend human dignity. Victims of bloody armed conflicts, terrorism and violence of all kinds, which inflict untold suffering on entire populations, are particularly the most vulnerable, children, women and the elderly. While ethnic, religious and political tensions, instability, rivalries, injustice and discrimination, which tear at the internal fabric of many countries, exacerbate international relations. And in the world, the number of migrants, refugees, and displaced persons is growing, also because of frequent natural disasters, often the consequence of worrying environmental disasters.

On this day of peace, our thoughts go above all to where the clang of arms resounds: to the martyred lands of Darfur, Somalia and the north of the Democratic Republic of Congo, to the borders of Eritrea and Ethiopia, to the entire Middle East, in particular Iraq, Lebanon and the Holy Land, to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, to the Balkan region, and to the many other crisis situations, often unfortunately forgotten. May the Child Jesus bring relief to those in trial and instil in those in government the wisdom and courage to seek and find humane, just and lasting solutions. To the thirst for meaning and value that the world feels today, to the search for well-being and peace that marks the life of all humanity, to the expectations of the poor Christ, true God and true Man, responds with his Christmas. Let individuals and nations not be afraid to recognise and welcome Him: with Him "a splendid light" illuminates the horizon of humanity; with Him opens "a holy day" that knows no sunset. May this Christmas truly be for all a day of joy, hope and peace!

"Come all and adore the Lord". With Mary, Joseph and the shepherds, with the Magi and the innumerable host of humble worshippers of the newborn Child, who down the centuries have welcomed the mystery of Christmas, let us too, brothers and sisters of every continent, let the light of this day spread everywhere: let it enter our hearts, brighten and warm our homes, bring serenity and hope to our cities, give peace to the world. This is my wish for you who listen to me. A wish that becomes a humble and trusting prayer to the Child Jesus, that his light may dispel all darkness from your lives and fill you with love and peace. May the Lord, who has made his face of mercy shine forth in Christ, satisfy you with his happiness and make you messengers of his goodness. Merry Christmas!

[Pope Benedict, Urbi et Orbi Message 25 December 2007].

 

The Logos became Flesh

"Verbum caro factum est" - "The Word became flesh" (Jn 1:14).

Dear brothers and sisters, who are listening to me from Rome and from the whole world, with joy I announce to you the message of Christmas: God became man, he came to dwell among us. God is not far away: he is near, indeed, he is the "Emmanuel", God-with-us. He is not a stranger: he has a face, that of Jesus.

It is a message that is always new, always surprising, because it goes beyond our wildest hopes. Above all, because it is not just an announcement: it is an event, a happening, that credible witnesses have seen, heard, touched in the Person of Jesus of Nazareth! Being with Him, observing His deeds and listening to His words, they recognised in Jesus the Messiah; and seeing Him resurrected, after He had been crucified, they became certain that He, true man, was at the same time true God, the only-begotten Son come from the Father, full of grace and truth (cf. Jn 1:14).

"The Word became flesh". Faced with this revelation, the question once again arises in us: how is this possible? The Word and the flesh are opposite realities; how can the eternal and omnipotent Word become a frail and mortal man? There is but one answer: Love. He who loves wants to share with the beloved, wants to be united with him, and Sacred Scripture presents us with precisely the great story of God's love for his people, culminating in Jesus Christ.

In reality, God does not change: He is true to Himself. The one who created the world is the same one who called Abraham and revealed his name to Moses: I am who I am ... the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob ... a merciful and gracious God, rich in love and faithfulness (cf. Ex 3:14-15; 34:6). God does not change, He is Love from everlasting and for ever. He is in Himself Communion, Unity in the Trinity, and His every work and word aims at communion. The incarnation is the culmination of creation. When Jesus, the Son of God made man, was formed in Mary's womb by the will of the Father and the action of the Holy Spirit, creation reached its apex. The ordering principle of the universe, the Logos, began to exist in the world, in a time and a space.

"The Word became flesh". The light of this truth is manifested to those who accept it with faith, because it is a mystery of love. Only those who open themselves to love are enveloped in the light of Christmas. So it was on the night of Bethlehem, and so it is also today. The incarnation of the Son of God is an event that happened in history, but at the same time goes beyond it. In the night of the world, a new light shines, which can be seen by the simple eyes of faith, by the meek and humble heart of those who await the Saviour. If truth were only a mathematical formula, it would in a sense impose itself. If, on the other hand, Truth is Love, it demands faith, the 'yes' of our heart.

And what, indeed, does our heart seek, if not a Truth that is Love? It is sought by the child, with its questions, so disarming and stimulating; it is sought by the young person, in need of finding the profound meaning of his or her life; it is sought by the man and woman in their maturity, to guide and sustain their commitment in the family and at work; it is sought by the elderly person, to give fulfilment to earthly existence.

"The Word became flesh". The proclamation of Christmas is also light for the peoples, for the collective journey of humanity. The 'Emmanuel', God-with-us, has come as King of justice and peace. His Kingdom - we know - is not of this world, yet it is more important than all the kingdoms of this world. It is like the leaven of humanity: if it were missing, the force that drives true development would fail: the drive to work together for the common good, to selfless service of neighbour, to peaceful struggle for justice. Believing in the God who wanted to share our history is a constant encouragement to engage in it, even in the midst of its contradictions. It is a reason for hope for all those whose dignity is offended and violated, because the One who was born in Bethlehem came to free man from the root of all slavery.

May the light of Christmas shine once again in the Land where Jesus was born, and inspire Israelis and Palestinians to seek a just and peaceful coexistence. May the consoling proclamation of the coming of Emmanuel soothe the pain and comfort the dear Christian communities in Iraq and throughout the Middle East in their trials, giving them comfort and hope for the future, and inspire the leaders of nations to active solidarity with them. Let this also be done in favour of those in Haiti who are still suffering from the consequences of the devastating earthquake and the recent cholera epidemic. Likewise let us not forget those in Colombia and Venezuela, but also in Guatemala and Costa Rica, who have suffered the recent natural disasters.

May the birth of the Saviour open up prospects of lasting peace and genuine progress for the peoples of Somalia, Darfur and Côte d'Ivoire; promote political and social stability in Madagascar; bring security and respect for human rights to Afghanistan and Pakistan; encourage dialogue between Nicaragua and Costa Rica; and foster reconciliation in the Korean Peninsula.

May the celebration of the birth of the Redeemer strengthen the spirit of faith, patience and courage in the faithful of the Church in mainland China, so that they may not lose heart in the face of restrictions on their freedom of religion and conscience and, persevering in fidelity to Christ and His Church, keep the flame of hope alive. May the love of 'God with us' grant perseverance to all Christian communities suffering discrimination and persecution, and inspire political and religious leaders to commit themselves to full respect for the religious freedom of all.

Dear brothers and sisters, "the Word became flesh", he came to dwell among us, he is the Emmanuel, the God who became close to us. Let us contemplate together this great mystery of love, let us let our hearts be enlightened by the light that shines in the grotto of Bethlehem! A Happy Christmas to all!

[Pope Benedict, Urbi et Orbi Message 25 December 2010].

 

 

"For me"

Dearest brothers and sons!

You await from us a word, which already resounds in your hearts; and the fact that you hear it again on this night and in this place acknowledges its perennial newness, its power of truth, its marvellous and beatifying joy. It is not ours, it is heavenly. Our lips repeat the annunciation of the Angel, who shone in the night, in Bethlehem, 1977 years ago, and who comforted the humble and frightened shepherds, keeping watch over their flock in the open air, and foretold the ineffable event that then took place in a nearby crib:

"I announce to you a great joy, which shall be to all the people: there is born to you this day in the city of David (Bethlehem) a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord" (Luc. 2 , 10-11).

So it is, so it is, Brothers and Sons! and so it is, we wish to extend our humble and fearless cry to those who "have ears to hear" (Matth. 11:15). A fact and a joy; here is the twofold great news!

The fact: it seems almost insignificant. A child is born, and in what humiliating conditions! Our children know this when they compose their cribs, naive but authentic documents of the Gospel reality. But the evangelical reality is transparent of a concomitant ineffable reality: that Child is living of a transcendent divine Sonship, "Filius Altissimi vocabitur" (Luc. 1, 32). Let us make our own the enthusiastic expressions of our great Predecessor, St Leo the Great, who exclaimed: "Our Saviour, O beloved, is born today: let us rejoice! There is no place for sadness, when it is the birth of life, which, having extinguished the fear of death, infuses us with the joy of the promised eternity" (S. LEONIS MAGNI Sermo I de Nativitate Domini).

So that while the supreme mystery of the Trinitarian life of the one God is revealed to us in the three distinct Persons, Father begetting, Son begotten, both united in the bond of the Holy Spirit, another mystery integrates our religious relationship with God with unquenchable wonder, opening heaven to the vision of the glory of the infinite divine transcendence, and, overcoming in a gift of incomparable love every distance, the nearness of Christ-God made man shows us that He is with us, He is seeking us: "For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men" (Tit. 2, 11; 3, 4).

Brothers! All men! What is Christmas if not this historical, cosmic event, extremely communal because it is aimed at universal proportions, and at the same time incomparably intimate and personal for each one of us, since the eternal Word of God, by virtue of Whom we already live out our natural existence (cf. Act. 17, 23-28), has precisely come in search of us; He eternal has inserted Himself in time, He infinite has almost annihilated Himself "by assuming the condition of a servant and becoming like men, He has appeared in human form, He has humbled Himself by becoming obedient unto death, and death on a cross" (Phil. 2, 6 ff.). Our ears are - alas! - accustomed to such a message, and our hearts deaf to such a call, a call of love: "Thus God loved the world ..." (I. 3:16). (I. 3:16); indeed, let us be precise: each of us can say with St Paul: "He loved me, and gave his life for me..." (Gal. 2:20).

Christmas is this arrival of the Word of God made man among us. Everyone can say: for me! Christmas is this wonder. Christmas is this wonder. Christmas is this joy. The words of Pascal return to our lips: Joy, joy, tears of joy!

Oh! may this nocturnal celebration of Christ's Christmas truly be for us all, for the whole Church, and for the world a renewed revelation of the ineffable mystery of the Incarnation, a source of unquenchable happiness! So be it!

[Pope Paul VI, Midnight Homily 24 December 1977].