John, son of Zebedee

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Let us dedicate our meeting today to remembering another very important member of the Apostolic College: John, son of Zebedee and brother of James. His typically Jewish name means: "the Lord has worked grace". He was mending his nets on the shore of Lake Tiberias when Jesus called him and his brother (cf. Mt 4: 21; Mk 1: 19).

John was always among the small group that Jesus took with him on specific occasions. He was with Peter and James when Jesus entered Peter's house in Capernaum to cure his mother-in-law (cf. Mk 1: 29); with the other two, he followed the Teacher into the house of Jairus, a ruler of the synagogue whose daughter he was to bring back to life (cf. Mk 5: 37); he followed him when he climbed the mountain for his Transfiguration (cf. Mk 9: 2).

He was beside the Lord on the Mount of Olives when, before the impressive sight of the Temple of Jerusalem, he spoke of the end of the city and of the world (cf. Mk 13: 3); and, lastly, he was close to him in the Garden of Gethsemane when he withdrew to pray to the Father before the Passion (cf. Mk 14: 33).

Shortly before the Passover, when Jesus chose two disciples to send them to prepare the room for the Supper, it was to him and to Peter that he entrusted this task (cf. Lk 22: 8).

His prominent position in the group of the Twelve makes it somewhat easier to understand the initiative taken one day by his mother: she approached Jesus to ask him if her two sons - John and James - could sit next to him in the Kingdom, one on his right and one on his left (cf. Mt 20: 20-21).

As we know, Jesus answered by asking a question in turn: he asked whether they were prepared to drink the cup that he was about to drink (cf. Mt 20: 22). The intention behind those words was to open the two disciples' eyes, to introduce them to knowledge of the mystery of his person and to suggest their future calling to be his witnesses, even to the supreme trial of blood.

A little later, in fact, Jesus explained that he had not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many (cf. Mt 20: 28).

In the days after the Resurrection, we find "the sons of Zebedee" busy with Peter and some of the other disciples on a night when they caught nothing, but that was followed, after the intervention of the Risen One, by the miraculous catch: it was to be "the disciple Jesus loved" who first recognized "the Lord" and pointed him out to Peter (cf. Jn 21: 1-13).

In the Church of Jerusalem, John occupied an important position in supervising the first group of Christians. Indeed, Paul lists him among those whom he calls the "pillars" of that community (cf. Gal 2: 9). In fact, Luke in the Acts presents him together with Peter while they are going to pray in the temple (cf. Acts 3: 1-4, 11) or appear before the Sanhedrin to witness to their faith in Jesus Christ (cf. Acts 4: 13, 19).

Together with Peter, he is sent to the Church of Jerusalem to strengthen the people in Samaria who had accepted the Gospel, praying for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit (cf. Acts 8: 14-15). In particular, we should remember what he affirmed with Peter to the Sanhedrin members who were accusing them: "We cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard" (Acts 4: 20).

It is precisely this frankness in confessing his faith that lives on as an example and a warning for all of us always to be ready to declare firmly our steadfast attachment to Christ, putting faith before any human calculation or concern.

According to tradition, John is the "disciple whom Jesus loved", who in the Fourth Gospel laid his head against the Teacher's breast at the Last Supper (cf. Jn 13: 23), stood at the foot of the Cross together with the Mother of Jesus (cf. Jn 19: 25) and lastly, witnessed both the empty tomb and the presence of the Risen One himself (cf. Jn 20: 2; 21: 7).

We know that this identification is disputed by scholars today, some of whom view him merely as the prototype of a disciple of Jesus. Leaving the exegetes to settle the matter, let us be content here with learning an important lesson for our lives: the Lord wishes to make each one of us a disciple who lives in personal friendship with him.

To achieve this, it is not enough to follow him and to listen to him outwardly: it is also necessary to live with him and like him. This is only possible in the context of a relationship of deep familiarity, imbued with the warmth of total trust. This is what happens between friends; for this reason Jesus said one day: "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.... No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you" (Jn 15: 13, 15).

In the apocryphal Acts of John, the Apostle is not presented as the founder of Churches nor as the guide of already established communities, but as a perpetual wayfarer, a communicator of the faith in the encounter with "souls capable of hoping and of being saved" (18: 10; 23: 8).

All is motivated by the paradoxical intention to make visible the invisible. And indeed, the Oriental Church calls him quite simply "the Theologian", that is, the one who can speak in accessible terms of the divine, revealing an arcane access to God through attachment to Jesus.

Devotion to the Apostle John spread from the city of Ephesus where, according to an ancient tradition, he worked for many years and died in the end at an extraordinarily advanced age, during the reign of the Emperor Trajan.

In Ephesus in the sixth century, the Emperor Justinian had a great basilica built in his honour, whose impressive ruins are still standing today. Precisely in the East, he enjoyed and still enjoys great veneration.

In Byzantine iconography he is often shown as very elderly - according to tradition, he died under the Emperor Trajan - in the process of intense contemplation, in the attitude, as it were, of those asking for silence.

Indeed, without sufficient recollection it is impossible to approach the supreme mystery of God and of his revelation. This explains why, years ago, Athenagoras, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, the man whom Pope Paul VI embraced at a memorable encounter, said: "John is the origin of our loftiest spirituality. Like him, "the silent ones' experience that mysterious exchange of hearts, pray for John's presence, and their hearts are set on fire" (O. Clément, Dialoghi con Atenagora, Turin 1972, p. 159).

May the Lord help us to study at John's school and learn the great lesson of love, so as to feel we are loved by Christ "to the end" (Jn 13: 1), and spend our lives for Him.

[Pope Benedict, General Audience 5 July 2006]

1. We meet at the liturgical time of Christmas. I want, therefore, the words that I am about to address to you today, to correspond to the joy of this feast and this octave. I also want them to correspond to that simplicity and at the same time that depth which Christmas irradiates over everyone. There comes to my mind spontaneously the memory of my feelings and my experiences, beginning from the years of my childhood in my father's house, through the difficult years of youth, the period of the second war, the world war. May it never be repeated in the history of Europe and of the world! Yet, even in the worst years, Christmas has always brought some rays with it. And these rays penetrated even the hardest experiences of contempt for man, annihilation of his dignity, of cruelty. To realize this, it is enough to pick up the memories of men who have passed through the prisons or concentration camps, the war fronts and the interrogations and trials. A gleam of faith

This ray of Christmas Night, a ray of the birth of God, is not only a memory of the lights of the tree beside the crib at home, in the family or in the parish church. It is something more. It is the deepest glimpse of humanity visited by God, humanity newly received and assumed by God himself; assumed in the Son of Mary in the unity of the Divine Person: the Son-Word. Human nature assumed mystically by the Son of God in each of us who have been adopted in the new union with the Father. The irradiation of this mystery extends far, very far, and even reaches those parts and those spheres of men's existence, in which any thought of God has been almost obscured and seems to be absent, as if it were burnt out completely. And lo, with Christmas night a gleam appears: perhaps in spite of everything? Happy this "perhaps in spite of everything" ... it is already a gleam of faith and hope.

2. In the festivity of Christmas we read of the pastors of Bethlehem who were the first to be called to the crib, to see the new-born Child: "And they went with haste, and found Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger." (Lk 2: 16.)

Let us stop at that "found". This word indicates a search. In fact, the shepherds of Bethlehem, when they stopped to rest with their flock, did not know that the time had come in which would happen that which had been announced for centuries by the prophets of that People to which they themselves belonged; and that it would happen just on that night; and that it would take place near the place where they had stopped. Even after wakening up from the sleep in which they were immersed, they did not know either what had happened or where it had happened. Their arrival at the cave of the Nativity was the result of a search. But at the same time they had been led, they were—as we read—guided by the voice and by the light. And if we go back even further in the past, we see them guided by the tradition of their People, by its expectation. We know that Israel had been promised the Messiah.

And lo, the Evangelist speaks of the simple, the humble, the poor of Israel: of the shepherds who found Him for the first time. He speaks, moreover, in all simplicity, as if it were a question of an "exterior" event: they looked for where he might be, and finally they found him. At the same time this "found" of Luke's indicates an inner dimension: that which took place on that Christmas night, in men, in those simple pastors of Bethlehem. "They found Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger"; and then: " ... the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them." (Lk 2:16, 20.)

3. "Found" indicates "a search". Man is a being who seeks. His whole history confirms it. Even the life of each of us bears witness to it. Many are the fields in which man seeks and seeks again and then finds and, sometimes, after having found, he begins to seek again. Among all these fields in which man is revealed as a being who seeks, there is one, the deepest. It is the one which penetrates most intimately into the very humanity of the human being. And it is the one most closely united with the meaning of the whole of human life.

Man is the being who seeks God. The ways of this search vary. The histories of human souls just along these paths are multiple. Sometimes the ways seem very simple and near. At other times they are difficult, complicated, distant. Now man arrives easily at his "eureka": "I have found!". Now he struggles with difficulties, as if he could not penetrate himself and the world, and above all as if he could not understand the evil that there is in the world. It is known that even in the context of the Nativity this evil has shown its threatening face.

A good many men have described their search for God along the ways of their own lives. Even more numerous are those who are silent, considering everything they have lived along these ways as their own deepest and most intimate mystery: what they experienced, how they searched, how they lost their sense of direction and how they found it again.

Man is the being who seeks God.

And even after having found him, he continues to seek him. And if he seeks him sincerely, he has already found him; as, in a famous fragment of Pascal, Jesus says to man: "Take comfort, you would not be looking for me if you had not already found me." (B. Pascal, Pensées, 553: Le mystère de Jésus.)

This is the truth about man.

It cannot be falsified. Nor can it be destroyed. It must be left to man because it defines him.

What can be said of atheism in the light of this truth? A great many things should be said, more than can be enclosed in the framework of this short address of mine. But at least one thing must be said: it is indispensable to apply a criterion, that is, the criterion of the freedom of the human spirit. Atheism cannot be reconciled with this criterion—a fundamental criterion—either when it denies a priori that man is the being that seeks God, or when it mutilates this search in various ways in social, public and cultural life. This attitude is contrary to the fundamental rights of man.

4. But I do not wish to dwell on this. If I mention it, I do so to show all the beauty and dignity of the search for God.

This thought was suggested to me by the feast of Christmas.

How was Christ born? How did he come into the world? Why did he come into the world?

He came into the world in order that men may be able to find him; those who look for him. Just as the shepherds found him in the cave at Bethlehem.

I will say even more. Jesus came into the world to reveal the whole dignity and nobility of the search for God, which is the deepest need of the human soul, and to meet the search halfway.

[Pope John Paul II, General Audience 27 December 1978]

In the passage of the Gospel we have heard (cf. Jn 20: 1-8), John tells us of that unimaginable morning that changed forever the history of humanity. Let us imagine it, that morning: at the first light of dawn of the day after Saturday, around the tomb of Jesus, everyone starts running. Mary of Magdala runs to warn the disciples; Peter and John run towards the tomb ... Everyone runs, everyone feels the urgency to move: there is no time to waste, we must hurry ... As Mary had done – remember? – as soon as conceived was Jesus, to go to help Elizabeth.

We have many reasons to run: often just because there are so many things to do and there is never enough time. Sometimes we hurry because we are attracted by something new, beautiful, or interesting. Sometimes, on the contrary, we run to escape from a threat, from a danger...

The disciples of Jesus run because they have received the news that the body of Jesus has disappeared from the grave. The hearts of Mary Magdalene, Simon Peter, and John are full of love and beat wildly after the separation that seemed definitive. Perhaps the hope of seeing the face of the Lord again is rekindled in them! As on that first day when he had promised: “Come and see” (Jn 1:39). The one who runs the fastest is John, certainly because he is younger, but also because he has never ceased to hope after seeing Jesus die on the cross with his own eyes; and also because he was close to Mary, the Mother, and in this way he has been “infected” by her faith. When we feel that faith is weaker or tepid, let us go to Her, Mary, and She will teach us, she will understand, she will make us feel the faith.

Since that morning, dear young people, history has no longer been the same. That morning changed history. The hour when death seemed to triumph, is shown in reality to be the time of its defeat. Even that heavy boulder, placed before the tomb, could not resist. And from that dawn of the first day after Saturday, every place where life is oppressed, every space in which violence, war, misery dominate, where man is humiliated and trampled – in that place a hope of life can still be rekindled.

Dear friends, you set off and have come to this meeting. And now my joy is to feel that your hearts beat with love for Jesus, like those of Mary Magdalene, of Peter, and of John. And because you are young, I, like Peter, am happy to see you run faster, like John, driven by the impulse of your heart, sensitive to the voice of the Spirit that inspires your dreams. This is why I say to you: do not be content with the prudent step of those who wait at the end of the line. do not be content with the prudent step of those who wait at the end of the line. It takes courage to risk a leap forward, a bold and daring leap to dream and realize like Jesus the Kingdom of God, and to commit yourselves to a more fraternal humanity. We need fraternity: take risks, go ahead!

I will be happy to see you running faster than those in the Church who are a little slow and fearful, attracted by that much-loved Face, which we adore in the Holy Eucharist and recognize in the flesh of our suffering brother. May the Holy Spirit drive you in this race forward. The Church needs your momentum, your intuitions, your faith. We are in need! And when you arrive where we have not yet reached, have the patience to wait for us, as John waited for Peter before the empty tomb. And another thing: walking together, these days, you have experienced how hard it can be to welcome the brother or sister who is next to me, but also how much joy his presence can give me if I receive this in my life without prejudice or a narrow mind. Walking alone allows us to be freed from everything, and perhaps faster, but walking together makes us become a people, the people of God. The people of God that gives us security, the security of belonging to the people of God ... And with God’s people you feel safe, in the people of God, in your belonging to the people of God you have an identity. An African proverb says: “If you want to go fast, run alone. If you want to go far, go with someone”.

The Gospel says that Peter first entered the tomb and saw the cloths on the ground and the shroud folded in a separate place. Then the other disciple also entered, who, the Gospel says, “saw and believed” (verse 8). This pair of verbs is very important: seeing and believing. Throughout the Gospel of John it is said that the disciples, seeing the signs that Jesus performed, believed in Him. Seeing and believing. What signs are these? Water transformed into wine for the wedding; some sick people healed; a blind man who gains his sight; a large crowd satiated with five loaves and two fish; and the resurrection of His friend Lazarus, who died four days beforehand. In all these signs, Jesus reveals the invisible face of God.

It is not a representation of the sublime divine perfection that transpires from the signs of Jesus, but the story of human frailty that meets the Grace that lifts up again. There is the wounded humanity that is healed by the encounter with the Master; there is the fallen man who finds an outstretched hand to cling to; there is the loss of the defeated who discover a hope of redemption. And John, when he enters Jesus’ tomb, carries in his eyes and in his heart those signs given by Jesus, immersing himself in the human drama to revive him. Jesus Christ, dear young people,  is not a hero immune from death, but rather He who transforms it with the gift of His life. And that carefully folded sheet says it will no longer be needed: death no longer has power over Him.

Dear young people, is it possible to encounter Life in places where death reigns? Yes, it is possible. We would want to say no, that it is better to stay away, keep far away. Yet this is the revolutionary novelty of the Gospel: Christ’s empty tomb becomes the last sign in which the definitive victory of Life shines forth. So we are not afraid! We do not stay away from the places of suffering, of defeat, of death. God has given us a power greater than all the injustices and fragility of history, greater than our sin: Jesus conquered death by giving His life for us. And He sends us forth to announce to our brothers that He is the Risen One, He is the Lord, and He gives us His Spirit to sow with Him the Kingdom of God. That morning of Easter Sunday changed history, let us have courage.

How many tombs, so to say, await our visit today! How many wounded people, even young ones, have sealed their suffering by placing, as they say, a stone on top of it? With the power of the Spirit and the Word of Jesus we can move those boulders and let beams of light enter into those ravines of darkness.

The journey to Rome was beautiful and tiring; think, how much effort, but how much beauty! But equally beautiful and challenging will be the return journey to your homes, to your countries and to your communities. Undertake it with the trust and energy of John, the “beloved disciple”. Yes, the secret is there – in being and knowing that you are “loved”, “loved” by Him, by Jesus, the Lord, He loves us! And each one of us, returning home, put this in your heart and in your mind: Jesus, the Lord, loves me. Undertake with courage and with joy the path towards home, take it with the awareness o being beloved by Jesus. Then life becomes a good race, without anxiety, without fear, that word that destroys us. Without anxiety and without fear. A race towards Jesus and to your brothers, with a heart full of love, faith and joy: go like this!

[Pope Francis, Final Reflection at the Prayer Vigil at the Circus Maximus 11 August 2018]

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].