Mary, Holy Mother of God (year A)  [1 January 2026]

May God bless us and the Virgin protect us! Best wishes for the new year, invoking God's blessing throughout 2026

*First Reading from the Book of Numbers (6:22-27)

The blessing "May the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you" comes from the Book of Numbers and has been pronounced by the priests of Israel since the time of Aaron. It has also become a permanent part of Christian liturgy, as the solemn blessing at the end of Mass. The expression "invoking the Name of God" must be understood in the biblical context: the Name represents the person himself, his presence, his protection. For this reason, pronouncing the Name of God over the people means placing them under his protection. When God reveals his Name, he makes himself accessible to the prayers of his people. Consequently, any offence against the people of God is an offence against his own Name. This also sheds light on Jesus' words about becoming a neighbour to the least among us: God has placed his Name on every person, who must therefore be regarded with respect and with new eyes. The blessing is formulated in the singular (may he bless you), but it refers to the entire people: it is a collective singular, which Israel understood as extending to all humanity. The use of the subjunctive does not indicate any doubt about God's will to bless, since God blesses unceasingly; rather, it expresses man's freedom to accept or reject this blessing. To bless means, in the biblical sense, that God 'speaks well' of man. His Word is effective and transforming: when God speaks well, he brings it about. To ask for a blessing is to open oneself to his transforming and life-giving action. To be blessed does not mean to be preserved from trials, but to live them in communion with God, within the Covenant, certain of his faithful presence. This finds its fulfilment in Mary, mother of God, the 'full of grace', upon whom the Name of God is placed in a unique and definitive way. The original Hebrew text further enriches the meaning: the Name YHWH is a promise of continuous presence, and the verbal form indicates a blessing that spans the past, present and future. God has blessed, blesses and will bless his people forever.

Important elements: +The blessing of Numbers 6 as Jewish and Christian heritage. +The Name of God as presence, protection and belonging. +The collective singular: blessing for all the people and for humanity. +The subjunctive as an expression of human freedom to accept grace. +Blessing as an effective Word that transforms. +Blessing not as the absence of trials, but as communion with God. +Mary as fully blessed and bearer of the Name. +The richness of the Hebrew text: eternal blessing of YHWH.

*Responsorial Psalm (66/67)

Psalm 66 responds harmoniously to the priestly blessing in the Book of Numbers: "May the Lord bless you and keep you." The same spiritual atmosphere pervades the psalm: the certainty that God accompanies his people. To say that God blesses is to affirm that God is with us. This is the most authentic definition of blessing, as the prophet Zechariah suggests: God's presence is so evident that it attracts the nations. The very Name revealed on Sinai, YHWH, expresses precisely this promise of faithful and permanent presence. In the psalm, it is the people themselves who ask for the blessing: "May God bless us." God blesses without interruption; however, man remains free to accept or reject this blessing. Prayer then becomes an opening of the heart to God's transforming action. For this reason, in the faith of Israel, prayer is always marked by the certainty of being heard even before asking. Israel does not ask for blessings only for itself. The blessing received is destined to radiate to all nations, according to the promise made to Abraham. Two inseparable dimensions are intertwined in the psalm: the election of Israel and the universality of God's plan. The expression "God, our God" recalls the Covenant, while the invitation to all peoples to praise God shows that salvation is offered to the whole of humanity. Israel gradually understands that it has been chosen not for exclusion, but to bear witness: the light that illuminates it must reflect the light of God for the whole world. This awareness matures especially after the exile, when Israel recognises that the God of the Covenant is the God of the universe. Zechariah's prophecy (8:23) clearly expresses this vision: the nations will draw near to the chosen people because they recognise that God is with them. Today's believers are also called to be a witnessing people: every blessing received is a mandate to become a reflection of God's light in the world. At the beginning of a new year, this becomes a mutual wish: to bring God's light where it is not yet welcomed. Finally, the psalm states that 'the earth has yielded its fruit'. Because the Word of God is effective, it bears fruit in history. God has kept his promise of a fruitful earth, and for Christians, this verse finds its full fulfilment in the birth of the Saviour: in the fullness of time, the earth has borne its fruit.

Important elements: +Psalm 66 as an echo of the blessing in Numbers 6. +Blessing as God's presence and accompaniment. +The Name YHWH as a promise of faithful presence. +God always blesses; man is free to accept. +Prayer as openness to God's transforming action. +The election of Israel and the universality of salvation. Israel (and the Church) as a witnessing people. +The blessing intended for all nations. +The Word of God bearing fruit in history. +Christian fulfilment in the mystery of the Incarnation.

Second Reading from the Letter of Saint Paul the Apostle to the Galatians (4:4-7)

"When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman": with this expression Paul announces the fulfilment of God's plan. History, according to biblical faith, is not an eternal return, but a progressive journey towards the realisation of God's merciful plan. This perspective of fulfilment is a fundamental key not only to understanding Paul's letters, but the entire Bible, beginning with the Old Testament. The authors of the New Testament insist on showing that the life, passion, death and resurrection of Jesus fulfil the Scriptures. This does not mean that everything was rigidly planned and predetermined: fulfilment should not be understood as fatality, but as a reinterpretation in faith of real events through which God, respecting human freedom, carries out his plan. God accepts the risk of human freedom, even when it conflicts with his plan; nevertheless, he never tires of renewing his promise, as Isaiah and Jeremiah attest. In Jesus, believers contemplate the definitive fulfilment of these promises. Paul then states that the Son of God was "born of a woman and born under the Law". In a few words, he expresses the whole mystery of Christ: true Son of God, true man, fully integrated into the people of Israel. The expression "born of a woman" simply indicates his full humanity, as attested by biblical language; being "under the Law" means that Jesus shared the condition of his people to the full. The purpose of this coming is clear: to redeem, that is, to free those who were under the Law, so that they might become adopted children. It is no longer a question of living as slaves who obey orders, but as children who obey out of love and trust. Thus, we move from submission to the Law to the freedom of filial obedience. This transition is made possible by the gift of the Spirit of the Son, who cries out in our hearts, 'Abba, Father'. It is the cry of trusting abandonment, the certainty that God is Father in all circumstances. For this reason, the believer is no longer a slave, but a child and, as a child, an heir: everything that belongs to the Son is also promised to him. The difficulty for human beings often lies in not daring to believe in this reality: not daring to believe that the Spirit of God dwells in them, that God's strength and capacity to love are truly given to them. And yet, none of this is due to human merit: if we are children and heirs, it is by grace. It is in this profound sense that we can say that everything is grace.

Important elements: +The fullness of time as the fulfilment of God's plan. +History as a journey towards God's benevolent plan. +The fulfilment of the Scriptures in Jesus, without determinism. +Respect for human freedom in the divine plan. +Jesus: Son of God, true man, born under the Law. +Redemption as liberation from the slavery of the Law. +The transition from slaves to children. +The gift of the Spirit who cries out 'Abba, Father'. Sonship as a promised inheritance. +Grace as the foundation of everything.

*From the Gospel according to Luke (2:16-21)

'What you have hidden from the wise and intelligent, you have revealed to the little ones' (Lk 10:21/ Mt 11:25): this verse illuminates the story of Jesus' birth, which is apparently simple but deeply theological. The shepherds, marginalised men who did not observe the Law, are the first to receive the angel's announcement: they thus become the first witnesses, bearers of the good news. Luke's narrative (Lk 2:8-14) emphasises how God's glory envelops them and how they are seized with fear and joy. Their experience recalls the words of Jesus: God reveals his mystery to the little ones, not to the wise. The story takes place in Bethlehem, the city of David and 'house of bread', where the newborn is laid in a manger: a symbol of the one who gives himself as nourishment for humanity. Mary observes in silence, meditating in her heart on all the events (Lk 2:19), showing attentive and filial contemplation, in contrast to the loquacity of the shepherds. Her attitude is reminiscent of that of Daniel, who kept the visions he received in his heart (Dan 7:28), foreshadowing the messianic destiny of the child. The name 'Jesus', which means 'God saves', reveals his saving mystery. Like every Jewish child, Jesus is circumcised on the eighth day and subjected to the Law of Moses, in full solidarity with his people. Luke insists on the circumcision and presentation in the Temple (Lk 2:22-24) to emphasise Mary and Joseph's perfect observance of the Law, not to highlight a ritual detail, but to show Jesus' complete adherence to the history and tradition of his people. This is consistent with his future identification with the wicked, as foretold: "And he was numbered among the wicked" (Lk 22:37). Finally, the discretion and silence of Mary, mother of God, show her humility and ability to become an instrument of God's plan. The centre of the plan is not Mary, but Jesus, the Saviour.

St Ambrose of Milan (4th century), commenting on the scene of the shepherds and Mary's attitude, writes: Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart: she did not try to explain the mystery in words, but kept it in faith" (cf. Expositio Evangelii secundum Lucam, II).

Important elements: +The revelation of God's mystery to the 'little ones', not to the wise and the shepherds: marginal witnesses and first heralds. +Bethlehem as the city of bread, symbol of saving nourishment. +Mary meditates on the events in her heart, a model of contemplation and silence. +The name Jesus means 'God saves'. +Circumcision and observance of the Law: Jesus' solidarity with the people and Presentation in the Temple: total adherence to the Law of Moses. +Jesus identified with the wicked: a sign of his mission. +Mary's silence and humility: an instrument of the divine plan, not the centre. + The plan of salvation has Jesus, the Saviour, at its centre.

+Giovanni D'Ercole

Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph (Year A)  [28 December 2025]

May God bless us and may the Virgin protect us! Here is a commentary on this Sunday's readings with a wish for every family that they may see themselves reflected in the real daily life of Nazareth, which the Bible shows us to have been truly tested by many difficulties and problems, just like any other family.

*First Reading from the Book of Sirach (3:2-6, 12-14)  

Ben Sira insists on the respect due to parents because, in the 2nd century BC (around 180), family authority was weakening. In Jerusalem, under Greek rule, despite religious freedom, new mentalities were slowly spreading: contact with the pagan world threatened to change the way Jews thought and lived. For this reason, Ben Sira, teacher of Wisdom, defends the foundations of faith starting from the family, the primary place of transmission of faith, values and religious practices. The text is therefore a strong appeal in favour of the family and is also a profound meditation on the fourth commandment: 'Honour your father and your mother', formulated in Exodus as a promise of long life and in Deuteronomy also of happiness. About fifty years later, Ben Sira's grandson, translating the work into Greek, adds a decisive motivation: parents are instruments of God because they give life; for this reason, they deserve honour, remembrance and gratitude. This commandment also responds to human common sense: a balanced society is born of solid families, while their breakdown generates serious psychological and social consequences. However, at the deepest level, family harmony belongs to God's own plan. Some of Ben Sira's expressions seem to suggest a 'calculation' ('whoever honours his father obtains forgiveness of sins...'), but in reality it is not a mechanical reward: God's Law is always a path to grace and happiness. As Deuteronomy teaches, the commandments are given for the good and freedom of man. When Ben Sira states that honouring one's parents obtains forgiveness, we see a progress in revelation: true reconciliation with God comes through reconciliation with one's neighbour, in harmony with the prophets ("I desire mercy, not sacrifice"). Being respectful children to our parents means being faithful children to God as well. It is no coincidence that, among the Ten Commandments, only two are formulated in positive terms: the Sabbath and honouring our parents. They find their fulfilment in the great commandment of love of neighbour, which begins precisely with our parents, our first 'neighbours'. This is why Ben Sira's text is particularly appropriate during the festive season, when family ties are strengthened or rediscovered.

*Most important elements: +Historical context: 2nd century BC, Hellenistic influence. +Family as the primary place of transmission of faith. +Defence of the fourth commandment. +Parents as instruments of God in the gift of life. +God's law as the way to happiness, not calculation. +Reconciliation with God through one's neighbour. +Honouring one's parents as the first act of love for one's neighbour.                               

*Responsorial Psalm (127/128)

 This psalm is called the 'Song of Ascents' because it was intended to be sung during the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, probably in the final moments, climbing the steps of the Temple. The text seems to be structured like a liturgical celebration: at the entrance to the Temple, the priests welcome the pilgrims and offer a final catechesis, proclaiming the blessedness of the man who fears the Lord and walks in his ways. The blessing concerns work, family, fertility and domestic peace: the fruit of one's hands, one's wife as a fruitful vine, one's children as olive shoots around the table. The assembly of pilgrims responds by confirming that those who fear the Lord are blessed. This is followed by the solemn formula of priestly blessing: from Mount Zion, the Lord grants his blessing, allowing us to contemplate the good of Jerusalem and the continuity of generations throughout our lives. The emphasis on work, prosperity and happiness may seem too 'earthly', but the Bible strongly affirms that God created man for happiness. The human desire for success and family harmony coincides with God's plan; this is why Scripture often speaks of 'happiness' and 'blessing', without irony, even in the face of the sufferings of history. The biblical term 'happy' does not indicate an automatic guarantee of success, but the true good, which is closeness to God. It is both recognition and encouragement. André Chouraqui translates 'happy, blessed' as 'on the way', to say: you are on the right path, continue. Israel quickly understood that God accompanies his people in their desire for happiness and opens up a path of hope before them (cf. Jer 29:11). The entire Bible affirms God's merciful plan for humanity, as St Paul reminds us in his letter to the Ephesians. Biblical happiness therefore has two dimensions: it is first and foremost God's plan, but it is also a choice made by human beings. The path is clear and straight: fidelity to the Law, which is summed up in love of God and humanity. Jesus walked this path to the end and invites his disciples to follow him, promising true blessedness to those who put his word into practice. What remains is the seemingly paradoxical expression: "Blessed are those who fear the Lord." This is not about fear, but reverent awe. Chouraqui renders it as: 'on the way, you who would tremble before God'. It is the emotion of those who feel small before a great love. Having discovered that God is love, Israel no longer fears as a slave, but as a child before the strength and tenderness of the father. It is no coincidence that Scripture uses the same verb for the respect due to God and to parents (Lev 19:3). Faith is therefore the certainty that God wants what is good for man; for this reason, "fearing the Lord" is equivalent to "walking in his ways". When Jerusalem lives this fidelity, it will fulfil its vocation as a city of peace; the psalm anticipates this by proclaiming: "May you see the good of Jerusalem all the days of your life".

*Most important elements: +The psalm, as a Song of Ascents and pilgrimage song, has a liturgical structure: priests, assembly, blessing. +Blessing on work, family and fertility. +God creates man for happiness and "blessed" are those who are close to God, and Chouraqui translates "blessed" = on the way. +God's benevolent plan for humanity, which sees happiness as a gift from God and a choice of man. +Jesus as the fulfilment of the journey of love. +'Fear of God' as a filial attitude, not fear. +Jerusalem called to be a city of peace.

*Second Reading from St Paul's Letter to the Colossians (3:12-21)          

 Today's liturgy invites us to contemplate the Holy Family: Joseph, Mary and Jesus. It is a simple family, and it is called "holy" because God himself is at its centre. However, it is not an idealised or unreal family: the Gospels clearly show that it went through real trials and difficulties. Joseph is troubled by Mary's mysterious pregnancy, Jesus is born in poor conditions, the family experiences exile in Egypt and later the anguish of Jesus being lost and found in the Temple, without fully understanding the meaning of it all. Precisely for this reason, the Holy Family appears as a real family, marked by struggles and questions similar to those of any other family. This reality reassures us and gives meaning to St Paul's recommendations in his letter to the Colossians, where he calls for patience and forgiveness, virtues that are necessary in daily life. Colossae, a city in present-day Turkey, was not visited directly by Paul: the Christian community was founded thanks to Epaphras, his disciple. Paul writes from prison, concerned about certain deviations that threaten the purity of the Christian faith. The tone of the letter alternates between contemplative enthusiasm for God's plan and very strong warnings against misleading doctrines. At the centre of his message is always Jesus Christ, the heart of history and of the world. Paul invites Christians to model their lives on Him: to clothe themselves with tenderness, goodness, peace and gratitude, doing everything in the name of the Lord Jesus. The baptised, in fact, form the Body of Christ. Taking up and deepening an image already used with the Corinthians, Paul affirms that Christ is the head and believers are the members, called to support one another in building up the edifice of the Church. The text also addresses family relationships, with expressions that may be difficult, such as the invitation to wives to submit. In the biblical context, however, this submission is not equivalent to servitude, but is part of a vision based on love and responsibility. Paul, after referring to language common at the time, addresses an even stronger requirement to husbands: to love their wives with respect and without harshness. Christian obedience arises from trust in God's love and is expressed in relationships marked by tenderness, respect and mutual giving.

*Important elements: +The Holy Family as a real family, not idealised, with the concrete trials experienced by Joseph, Mary and Jesus, and an invitation to patience and forgiveness in family life. +Context of the letter to the Colossians and the role of Epaphras with Paul's concern for the fidelity of the Christian faith. +Centrality of Jesus Christ in the lives of believers as the Body of Christ, called to support one another. +Family relationships based on love and respect where biblical submission is understood as trust and gift, not slavery. +Christian obedience rooted in the certainty that God is Love.

*From the Gospel according to Matthew (2:13-15, 19-239    

The episode of the Holy Family's flight to Egypt deliberately recalls another great biblical story: that of Moses and the people of Israel, twelve centuries earlier, enslaved in Egypt. Just as the pharaoh ordered the killing of male newborns and Moses was saved to become the liberator of his people, so Jesus escapes Herod's massacre and becomes the saviour of humanity. Matthew invites us to recognise in Jesus the new Moses, the fulfilment of the promise of Deuteronomy 18:18: a prophet raised up by God like Moses himself. A second sign of the fulfilment of the Scriptures is the quotation from Hosea 11:1: "Out of Egypt I called my son." Originally referring to the people of Israel, Matthew applies it to Jesus, presenting him as the New Israel, the one who fully realises the Covenant. The title Son of God, already attributed to kings and the Messiah, acquires its full meaning in Jesus: in the light of the resurrection and the gift of the Spirit, believers recognise that Jesus is truly the Son of God, God from God, as the Christian faith confesses. A third sign is the statement: "He will be called a Nazarene". Although the Old Testament does not mention Nazareth, Matthew plays on linguistic and symbolic resonances: netser (messianic 'shoot' of the line of David), nazir (consecrated to God), and natsar ('to guard'). Nazareth thus becomes the sign of God's choice of the humble and insignificant. Furthermore, when Christians are despised as 'Nazarenes', Matthew encourages them by reminding them that Jesus also bore that title: what appears despicable to men is precious in the eyes of God. In the story, Matthew constructs two parallel scenes: the flight into Egypt and the return from Egypt. In both there is a historical context, the appearance of the angel to Joseph in a dream, immediate obedience and the conclusion: thus was fulfilled "what had been said through the prophets". The parallelism relates the titles Son of God and Nazarene, showing an unexpected Messiah: glorious and humble at the same time. This is why the text is proclaimed on the feast of the Holy Family: Jesus is the Son of God, but he grows up in a simple family and in an insignificant village. It is the great Christian paradox: divine history is fulfilled in the most ordinary everyday life of human families. Ancient commentators such as Pseudo-Dionysius and Pseudo-Chrysostom reflect on the flight into Egypt, not only as a historical fact but as a manifestation of the plan of salvation: Christ, though he is God, submits himself to the law of the flesh and to divine guidance, demonstrating the true humanity and obedience of the Messiah. St Jerome, on the other hand, emphasises that not only Herod, but also the high priests and scribes sought the Lord's death from the very first moments of his coming into the world, showing the spiritual hostility that Jesus would encounter throughout his mission. Another interpretation by some ancient Fathers sees in the stay in Egypt a salvific dimension not only for Jesus himself, but symbolically for the world: He goes to that land historically associated with oppression and paganism not to stay, but to bring light and salvation, confirming that the coming of Christ is for everyone, even for peoples far from God.  Thus, for the ancient commentators, the story is not mere narration: it is a theological revelation of the mystery of Christ, who enters human history as free obedience for our salvation and the fulfilment of prophetic promises.

*St. Irenaeus of Lyons (Against Heresies) writes: "Jesus is the recapitulation of all history: what was lost in Adam is found again in Christ." This is often applied by the Fathers to the flight into Egypt: Christ retraces the history of Israel to bring it to fulfilment.

*Important elements: +Parallelism between Jesus and Moses, Jesus as the new Moses and the new Israel. +Fulfillment of the Scriptures according to Matthew: 'Out of Egypt I called my son' (Hos 11:1). +Title of Son of God in the full Christological sense. +Symbolic meaning of Nazareth / Nazarene. +Divine choice of the humble and despised, and unexpected Messiah: divine glory and concrete humility. +Parallel narrative structure: flight and return from Egypt. +Holy Family: the divine experienced in everyday life

+Giovanni D'Ercole

(Nm 6:22-27; Lk 2:16-21)

Blessing the people was an ancient prerogative of the sovereign who acted in the name of God and at first had priestly functions.

But in an attitude of encounter that makes God present ‘in the midst’ of the crowds - people of his Face - that of the ancient king also becomes an act of worship to be rediscovered.

We need to feel that we are blessed: not to extinguish ourselves, to regenerate the affective truth that dwells within us and brings us back to life, thus contemplating it and thus initiating any adventure.

Cursing does not strengthen, it indicates rejection; it separates us. Blessing is the way of sharing and Peace, that is to say, of attaining completeness.

In Israel, the divine blessing was (in fact) expected in material guise. But the formula of the Aaronnite priesthood attests to the original idea that human life does not have its secret in the most obvious configuration.

We too know that partial and comfort-only situations, irenicism, wellbeing and security, turn into their opposite - they do not increase the integrity of life [authentic biblical sense of Shalôm].

Those who do not follow innate intuition, a more radical call of the self, or stunning proclamations (Lk 1:26-38. 2:8-15) do not develop their destiny, do not move, do not set things right.

Common proclamations end up incinerating personalities.

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

But it is that simple hearth that draws them into God's new plan, and into the proclamation of his scandalous unconditional Mercy - which did not electrocute them for impurity.

Religion had branded them forever: lost, despicable, remedyless beings.

Now they are free from identification. They have 'another eye' - like that of the “first time”: a gaze that will lead them one hundred per cent.

Exodated with an image of helpless God in front of them, they do not bother to engage in ethical discipline, which would crumble them.

They enjoy the wonder of a simply human reality - in a mysterious relationship of mutual recognition.

Strange that the modest sign - a baby in a manger, an unclean place where beasts linger - convinces them, makes them regain esteem, makes them proclaimers [perhaps not even assiduous evangelizers].

Like Calvary to which it refers, the resolving 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 small, vilified prairie dogs and transhumance - as, conversely, will the Magi (Mt 2:11).

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

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

People not tormented by static judgement, but now «in the midst» of all men and no longer at high altitude.

(Lk 2:16-21)

Mary sought the meaning of surprises (v.19). Thus She regenerated, for a new way of understanding and being together - to also give birth the inner world of the people.

She ‘put together’ facts and Word, in order to discover its main thread, to remain receptive and not to be conditioned by inflexible convictions, which would not give her escape.

The Mother, while caught by surprise, was preparing herself for the eccentricity of God, without straying from time and the real condition.

His figure and that of the shepherds challenge us, ask for the courage of an answer - but after letting the same kind of ‘inner presences’ flow, worthy visitors, which are allowed to express themselves.

Like us, she too had to go from the fathers’ beliefs to the Faith in the Father. From the idea of love as a reward to that of the ‘gift’. 

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

The adventure of Faith is wide open. And the new Child has a Name that expresses the unprecedented essence of Saviour, not of executioner.

The plenitude of his story will be fully instructive also in terms of how to internalize uncertainties and hardships: these bad moments and precariousness teach us how to live.

In fact, we too, as Mary, «go recognizing» the presence of God in the riddles of Scripture, in the Little One ‘wrapped in bandages’ - even in the ancestral echo of our inner worlds.

And we let us go - we don’t quite know where. But just like this is the Infinity, in its folds.

The wise Dream that inhabits the human, tastes of ancient humus, but its echo is reborn every day, in the tide of being that orients to ‘look’ truly, without veils.

A conformist demeanor of coming across and ‘seeing’ things outwardly would not solve the problem.

Sometimes, in order not to be conditioned, it’s necessary to re-edifying oneself in silence, like the Virgin; building a sort of hermeneutic island wich opens up different doors, wich introduces other lights.

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

In this way, returning to its primordial being and the sense of the Newborn - ancient image, dear to many cultures.

She entered an Elsewhere and did not leave the reality field: inside his Centre, without haste.

By researching for the Sun drowned in his being and which came back, emerged, rose in her innermost depth, that made her exist beyond.

Thus she did not allow herself to be absorbed by traditional ideas or external situations, which also wanted to break the balance.

In her modest solitude - full of Grace - that higher self (hidden in the essence) came more and more to her, became a new Dawn and guide.

She didn’t want to live inside thoughts, knowledge and reasoning around - no one capable of amplifying life - all in the hands of conventions‘ drugs dehumanizing the Enchantment.

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

Dreams supported and conveyed her Center - by flowing a new life from the Core of her Person. And the youthfulness of the world.

[Mary Most Holy Mother of God, January 1st]

Incredible of the Year

At the beginning of the New Year, a rich gentleman had an idea: only the person capable of doing the most incredible thing of the year should inherit all his possessions.

His friends engaged all their imagination.

Some old people - in pursuit of their own taste - had indigestion and risked dying from eating and drinking.

Some brats practised somersaults instead.

Then a whole exhibition of unbelievable tricks was set up. One person played the part of Moses on the Mount with the Tablets of the Law, but he found it difficult to reproduce lightning and thunder; the backdrop was static and antiquated.

A guy disguised as a crow was telling stories and old memories, next to an unlit stove.

Someone dressed up as an undertaker, but people did not appreciate his overly professorial air or his loden.

Others wanted to perform the Beatitudes, but forgot about the persecuted.

An artist defaced his own paintings; a sculptor hammered like a madman, but the noise of his grinding wheel was even more unbearable.

A carpenter was working very well on a chest, but in everyone's opinion he lifted too much chaff, leaving an excessive amount of shavings on the ground.

Suddenly a bouncer as tall as a gorilla and as strong as Maciste burst in: 'I am the man of the most incredible thing'.

With his fists he knocked out the onlookers and with an axe he smashed everything around, everything to shreds.

Every object was destroyed and everyone was left stunned to the ground. "This is what I am capable of!" - said the man - "my deed beat the whole universe! I have done the most incredible thing, and not just of the year!"

The judges of the contest were puzzled, but at that point it seemed they could not award the palm of victory to anyone else...

In the atmosphere of general annihilation, the last on the list popped up from who knows where; a certain Christopher. He proposed to go to the Levant by way of the Ponente. Everyone laughed loudly, but he asked for time.

Thus, at the end of his tale of miscalculations and - at times - favourable winds, he proved that he could land in a new territory, richer than anywhere and previously unimagined. (Often, however, passing through inaccurate news and seemingly destructive forces).

Everything changed, because of his visionary courage.

From that moment on, the continent from which the caravels set sail became 'the old world' in the common understanding, which in fact - satiated and desperate, stuck in its positions - also aged demographically and gradually irreparably; ruining itself.

That absurd adventure - a metaphor for the journey of each person who does not learn to hold back - then burst forth as a type of a new life proposal, open and creative, prone to wonder.

The variety of experiences and even the range of fantasies were no longer held in contempt of costumes, but became an added value.

Such a proposal model (visions that anticipated needs) gradually emerged in common pedagogy.

It was also adopted by the pilgrims of the Spirit as a positive icon of the New Covenant between God and man - now capable of enhancing the intricate mixture of values and criteria of our hearts; with its common and earthly interests, but enraptured in the most sublime dreams.

For a Christian life not of cosmetics, but of exploration and surprise; a programme for the whole year.

This is how Christopher changed history, by sailing backwards.

Mary, the Art of Perception that breaks the mould

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

For a life from the authentic I to the unknown Culmination

"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 willingly 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 inner, 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 within and without 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 the religious opinions of others - in order 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 hardships 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 over the years - not the functional side. 

He did not dream of a quiet life, but rather of understanding his personal mission.

Without naivety, she questioned the meaning of intimate callings, happenings, and her own motives - 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 becomes 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 her 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 listened to and taken in, they could deviate, and take precisely 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.

It 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 true passions, which grasp, anticipate and actualise the timelessness in time. 

She did not give up wondering what - with its many facets - 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, her 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 herself, she 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.

They 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 had discovered.

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

Instead, here they are set ablaze by the everlasting Flame - that of the whole world (past, present and future) that knows how to recover and stay 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".

Before 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 the one from the first time. An eye that will take them one hundred per cent.

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

Rather, they enjoy the awe 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, 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 really '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 to the sense of the Newborn - an image steeped in primordial meaning and vital 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. 

He did not want to live inside thoughts, knowledge and reasoning around him - 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 her Peace.

Dreams sustained and conveyed its nest and inner core - making new life flow from the core of its Person, and the youth of the world.

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

(Lk 2:16-21)

In the cages of our devotion, perhaps there is still no place for Jesus who offers himself. He continues to be born a child like the others, distant and poor, rejected.

Only those on the margins of society seem capable of waiting, openness to the mystery, and searching: keeping watch at night (v.8), passing by and seeing (v.15), coming in haste (v.16), praising (v.20).

The Mother is already making her way from the religiosity of the fathers to the Faith in the Father: Contemplative who listens, meets her deepest states and tries not to miss anything.

Those who are nobodies but feel anxious searching and prayerful hearts can sing a new song.

In this way, he will be able to decipher the signs of the divine Presence inscribed in events, and welcome Christ into his inner dwelling (v.7) [cf. commentary on the Prologue of John].

In the simplicity of the Son - in the Freedom of children - the Eternal God points out to the wretched and abandoned multitudes a new Way, capable of valuing the limits and even the eccentricities of each one.

Throughout the first century, both in Palestine and Asia Minor [Johannine and Lucan churches] the different schools of theology and servants of God - of traditional Judaism, of Jesus, of the Baptist - confronted each other in alternative ways.

Where there were communities of Jews, there was no lack of controversy between Christians and various (more or less radical) observers of the religion of the fathers - as well as people who had been baptised by John, or at least in contact with his pupils. The Master and the first apostles had also been.

Rather than confusion, there was real competition between the group of Christ's disciples and those of the Baptizer.

This, even though both proclaimed the coming of the Kingdom of God, and proposed social justice and the forgiveness of sins in practical life - instead of through rituals and sacrificial gestures at the Temple in Jerusalem.

Yet, thanks to the Son, the apostles grasped the depth of the Father's heart, which never resembles a justicialist, but works exclusively for the good and the promotion of life.

Hence in the Faith they themselves achieved inexplicable recoveries - precisely by gratuitously integrating the weak sides of people - without works of mortification of the insecure woman and man, nor claiming impossible preventive perfections.

Even today, precisely from the dark sides of our personality, the Father creates in the Spirit of the Beatitudes 'his' Newness, which turns the tables.

A completely unexpected change, impossible to imagine and propose; at least on the basis of prejudices or established ideas - all of which compete with self-esteem and joie de vivre.

The God of unconditional and guilt-dispelling love was precisely the exclusive prerogative of the new people of Faith in Christ, who had overcome the accusatory, moralistic and fussy cloaks of established custom.

Even then, diversity brought into play the question of the purifications required by the 'creeds' accepted by the cultural paradigm, and by identity rituals.

Jesus seemed completely alien to the mentality of the cultic ablutions of tradition.

It was the habit of life with Him that regenerated souls in the round, even from the eccentricities of each one.

Precious uniquenesses, interpreted as a sign of vocational exceptionality.

He taught the wretched and those condemned by religion how to get back on their feet by appealing to the different faces lurking in each one's soul: taking them on and investing them rather than denying them.

Personalities all... not pre-emptively sterilised; souls also with extravagant expressions, or with unconscious, shaky, unexpressed sides - in which Jesus taught to discover the traits of the personal missionary call.

And precisely 'from' here - it seems incredible - we too are sent to the Annunciation.

All this remains fundamental every day.

In fact, the [pious or avant-garde] proposals may present themselves in dignified forms - but they remain only outposts of the new quality leap.

The latter, capable of astonishment and all humanising: without the tare of feeling marked for life by external opinions.

Obviously, these forms of familial looseness and immediacy towards the Eternal God aroused the envy of the veterans still caged in the old fears of retribution, in the heap of works of law, of personal efficiencies unaware of open Grace, of personal Gift.

In no fulfilment, but in Christ alone, his friends and brothers recognised the Voice of the loving God.

He does not distinguish a priori 'superiorities': between the pure and the impure, the able and the unable, friends and foes; the chosen, the predestined, and the not.

In short, in our real life we do not wait for a phenomenon Messiah who continually upsets and oppresses us, filling us with fears and deviations to be corrected [which sap all energy]. 

Let us only look for a Friend who allows us to express ourselves in an unprecedented way and have a long - even undeserved - hope.

Let us be like the shepherds: no one has ever understood what convinced them, except the amazement of unpredictable gratuitousness (vv.15-18.20).

Paradoxically ready to found a new people - without too many regulations and clichés - starting from how and where each one found himself.

By now, we too no longer need the imprimatur of ideological sectarianism, without openness to the surprise of the surprising Incarnation, which makes the 'inadequate' gasp with joy...

Our most childish oddities [cf. commentary on the Prologue of John] can bring the human condition closer to the divine one.

So they have the approval of the Lord of all cosmos.

And Mary: the Question that is the Answer

(Gal 4:4-7; Lk 2:16-21)

We ask ourselves: in this time, what can make us intimate with the Lord?

[A certain Christopher changed history by sailing backwards...].

The shepherds experience the preference of a true and excessive Love, by blessing of the eccentric - and Wonder.

Preference that is not granted in exchange for merits, but because of needs.

Lk wants to emphasise that - by praising and glorifying God (v.20) just as the Angels do - the imperfect and defaulters paradoxically find themselves closer to the divine throne than the ever-arrogant position of the most sterile, or the most 'performing'.

We too are surprised to know a Father who, instead of incinerating us because of our insecurities, not only shrouds us in 'light' (v.9), but also builds his Newness on those very insecurities.

We all thought we were born to be pious and obedient children, or great 'phenomena' [narcissists].

Instead of putting us under stress, the Father wants us to rediscover the pleasure and wonder of gratuitousness and togetherness. Without models first - and minding obligations, ways, times, places, duties, reverences, prostrations and kissing of any kind!

God knows that we are surrounded by spheres, stimuli, moves, chores, which take us away. But neither does he demand a minimum of his own, for he does not act like the wayward child who wants the big slice of cake at snack time [corresponding to his rank].

The relationship with Him is not a continual effort, to be laboriously kept up with. It is a lightening, and even strengthening in the counterweights.

In Advent we have already emphasised: that of the Lord Who Comes is a Ray that does not intrude into the horizon of normal expectations, adapting itself to our external dreams - those that live of expected goals, and then become a torment.

In the arc of life, the encounter with such wise Light that pierces the darkness of night is in the difficulties that force us to shift our gaze, in the failure that compels us to regenerate creativity, in the bewilderment that makes us contact new ways of being.

The life of Faith does not endure the demon of 'perfection' imagined by archaic religions.

They willingly replace all gratuitousness with a sense of adult duty - which inevitably gives birth to nerve-wracking and even compensatory strategies [thank God, today less and less hidden].

According to Chinese thought, in order to gain polish and escape a polluted and worn-out servility, the saints 'are taught by beasts the art of avoiding the harmful effects of domestication, which life in society imposes'.

Indeed: 'Domesticated animals die prematurely. And so do men, whom social conventions forbid to obey spontaneously the rhythm of universal life'.

"These conventions impose continuous, self-interested, exhausting activity [whereas it is appropriate] to alternate between periods of slow life and jubilation".

"The saint does not submit himself to retreat or fasting except in order to achieve, through ecstasy, to escape for long journeys. This liberation is prepared by life-giving games, which nature teaches".

"One trains oneself for the paradisiacal life by imitating the amusements of animals. To sanctify oneself, one must first brutalise oneself - that is to say, learn from children, from beasts, from plants, the simple and joyful art of living only in view of life."

[M. Granet, The Chinese Thought, Adelphi 2019, kindle pp. 6904-6909].

The 'shepherds' immediately place both guilt and the obligatory time of fulfilment in the background of their real existence, retaining their charge and enthusiasm.

In this way, for us too, nothing in life seems an insurmountable wall any more - apart from the prejudice of the 'just' [those of the 'conditional': the 'ifs', the 'buts'].

Even routine does not take away energy and drive - how come? Because spontaneous souls do not need to take care of the external look, to please the opinion of others; so on.

Without even realising it, having no artificial screens to hold up, the genuine can face life head-on, and get off on the right foot.

Thus, attracting great opportunities for change.

They may not go too deep, but they listen to needs.

And they expand their space without asking permission from those who will never grant it; they sense the essentials that flow from freedom of mind and code.

Their 'having to be' has no artificial expectations: it is simple attunement with nature and with themselves.

A decisive position, because on such a ray they are able to see the weak side as a container of great strength, which activates capacities capable of building a whole other destiny.

They do not pose the problem of having to look good, or of not being what they are. Then they have plenty of time, and are seen to be orderly and good-natured, with no discomfort; in harmony with everyone.

They follow their story, and without too many expectations or intentions, they learn to trust the flow of events, even intimate ones.

They know how to welcome as worthy guests all their inner states, without feeling guilty.

In their own motives, they are 'clear'. So they do not fall into neuroses.

The encounter with serene Authenticity has retrained them.

Light that has conquered self-esteem.

They feel empowered instead of targets. And the regained confidence makes them open and welcoming towards others.

They have realised that they must rely on deeper knowledge than that inoculated by the prejudices of decision-makers.

God is the exact opposite of the veterans' catechism: it is only the encounter with Him that purifies - not the apparent vice versa.

We too wish to open ourselves to the new Mystery. Experience that is preparing the womb of our souls at this time.

We are in a transhumance full of discoveries and adventures: we can learn how to be with what is coming and reinterpret it, learning to walk on our own legs and putting our attitudes into action.

Side by side with the shepherds, who ceaselessly put energies back into circulation - our lives can turn out to be much richer than the affair of the precise and impeccable.

We want to turn routine into an adventure that glimpses the authentic Sacred in the small Seed that inhabits us.

We will do this without too much efficiency: perhaps we will also build a regenerating highland refuge, to train intuition - and from there recreate the Vision, and the world.

No one this year should feel inadequate, excluded from the action of God's Love and the ability to radiate it.

As in the Gospel of Easter morning, we can peer into the darkness and sense even amidst signs of death the great energies of Life.

The world of shadows is no longer in the same trim as before.

Among the humbled, even Mary is astonished, but seeks to understand and makes her own way. Indeed, she understands that the Answer is already in the Question.

Comparing within herself Word and events around her Son, she realises that in the 'problem' (which surprised her) there was already the energy of the 'solution'.

Who is Jesus?

The contrast between the extraordinary figure of the awaited and misunderstood Messiah, and the obtuseness of the elusive judgement of popular doctrines, ended up leaving things as they were.

Indeed, worse: it encapsulated the Mystery - the most normal one in the world [but one that remains forever]: the humanity of God.

And he lost his 'whereabouts'.

He could not understand the Person of Christ from the things he knew or by trying to frame him in the familiar criteria of the First Testament; in the common feeling, with the magical models of the time.

His Master pupil could not be satisfied with an improvement of the situation.

He had to replace it, announcing the Truth of the Father; of the authentic man and woman.

Proposing a germ of an alternative world to the ruthless and pyramidal society; the one that establishes what to think and say, how one must be and behave.

God intends to bring out and enhance the intuition of consciences more than to impose duties or cravings for analysing behaviour.

This is the incredible.

Each religious group enclosed the Messiah in its own interpretative model, consonant with an environment tinged with ancient hopes: defence of goods and customs, well-being at the expense of others, expansion, prodigies.

The children's revolution poses an issue that seeks its Way Elsewhere - after all around the corner, but not relegated 'inside' a corner.

For to question the Person of Christ is already to begin to overcome petty, habitual interpretations, and to embrace the irruption of God.

The ever-childlike Lord will overturn the fortunes, the destiny of man's kingdom, and its claims that cage the soul, immobilising life.

The knowledge of his story, the adhesion to his Person, and the Action of the Spirit, will not allow the fixed thoughts, attachments, clichés, window dressing that then impregnate the whole soul, depriving it of intoxication and fruitfulness, to persist in Mary's mind.

It is in the Son that she becomes a Mother, a totally personal Presence, a new Sense.

Maternity hers, of innate Wisdom, that opens horizons: in the authentic Church she is leading us to different Dreams of being.

Woman who wants to express herself by humanising.

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

As in a mosaic, today's liturgy contemplates different events and messianic situations, but attention is especially focused on Mary, Mother of God. Eight days after Jesus' birth, we commemorate the Mother, the Theotokos, the one who gave birth to the Child who is King of Heaven and earth for ever (cf. Entrance Antiphon; Sedulius).

The liturgy today meditates on the Word made man and repeats that he is born of the Virgin. It reflects on the circumcision of Jesus as a rite of admission to the community and contemplates God who, by means of Mary, gave his Only-Begotten Son to lead the "new people". It recalls the name given to the Messiah and listens to it spoken with tender sweetness by his Mother. It invokes peace for the world, Christ's peace, and does so through Mary, Mediatrix and Cooperator of Christ (cf. Lumen Gentium, nn. 60-61).

We are beginning a new solar year which is a further period of time offered to us by divine Providence in the context of the salvation inaugurated by Christ. But did not the eternal Word enter time precisely through Mary? In the Second Reading we have just listened to, the Apostle Paul recalls this by saying that Jesus was born "of woman" (Gal 4: 4).

In today's liturgy the figure of Mary, true Mother of Jesus, God-man, stands out. Thus, today's Solemnity is not celebrating an abstract idea but a mystery and an historic event: Jesus Christ, a divine Person, is born of the Virgin Mary who is his Mother in the truest sense.

Today too, Mary's virginity is highlighted, in addition to her motherhood. These are two prerogatives that are always proclaimed together, inseparably, because they complement and qualify each other. Mary is Mother, but a Virgin Mother; Mary is a virgin, but a Mother Virgin. If either of these aspects is ignored, the mystery of Mary as the Gospels present her to us, cannot be properly understood.

As Mother of Christ, Mary is also Mother of the Church, which my venerable Predecessor, the Servant of God Paul VI chose to proclaim on 21 November 1964 at the Second Vatican Council. Lastly, Mary is the Spiritual Mother of all humanity, because Jesus on the Cross shed his blood for all of us and from the Cross he entrusted us all to her maternal care.

Let us begin this new year, therefore, by looking at Mary whom we received from God's hands as a precious "talent" to be made fruitful, a providential opportunity to contribute to bringing about the Kingdom of God.

In this atmosphere of prayer and gratitude to the Lord for the gift of a new year, I am pleased to address my respectful thoughts to the distinguished Ambassadors of the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See who have desired to take part in today's solemn Celebration.

I cordially greet Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, my Secretary of State. I greet Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino and the members of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and express to them my deep gratitude for the commitment with which they daily promote these values, so fundamental to social life.

For this World Day of Peace, I addressed the customary Message to the Governors and Leaders of Nations, as well as to all men and women of good will. Its theme this year is: The human person, the heart of peace.

I am deeply convinced that "respect for the person promotes peace and that, in building peace, the foundations are laid for an authentic integral humanism" (Message for World Peace Day, 1 January 2007, n. 1).

This commitment is especially incumbent on every Christian who is called "to be committed to tireless peace-making and strenuous defence of the dignity of the human person and his inalienable rights" (Message, n. 16). Precisely because he is created in the image and likeness of God (cf. Gn 1: 27), every human individual without distinction of race, culture or religion, as a person is clothed in God's same dignity. For this reason he should be respected, nor can any reason ever justify an arbitrary use of him, as if he were an object.

In the face of the threats to peace that are unfortunately ever present, the situations of injustice and violence that persist in various areas of the earth and the continuing armed conflicts often overlooked by the majority of public opinion, as well as the danger of terrorism that clouds the serenity of peoples, it is becoming more necessary than ever to work for peace together. This, as I recalled in my Message, is "both gift and task" (n. 3): a gift to implore with prayer and a task to be carried out with courage, never tiring.

The Gospel narrative we have heard portrays the scene of the shepherds of Bethlehem, who after hearing the Angel's announcement go to the grotto to worship the Child (cf. Lk 2: 16). Should we not look again at the dramatic situation marking the very Land in which Jesus was born? How can we not entreat God with insistent prayers for the day of peace to arrive as soon as possible in that region too, the day on which the current conflict that has lasted far too long will be resolved?

If a peace agreement is to endure, it must be based on respect for the dignity and rights of every person. I express to the representatives of the nations present here my hope that the International Community will muster its forces so that a world may be built in God's Name in which the essential human rights are respected by all. For this to happen, people must recognize that these rights are not only based on human agreements but "on man's very nature and his inalienable dignity as a person created by God" (Message, n. 13).

Indeed, were the constitutive elements of human dignity entrusted to changeable human opinions, even solemnly proclaimed human rights would end by being weakened and variously interpreted. "Consequently, it is important for international agencies not to lose sight of the natural foundation of human rights. This would enable them to avoid the risk, unfortunately ever-present, of sliding towards a merely positivistic interpretation of those rights" (ibid.).

"The Lord bless you and keep you... lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace" (Nm 6: 24, 26). This is the formula of the Blessing we heard in the First Reading, taken from the Book of Numbers. The Lord's Name is repeated in it three times. This gives one an idea of the intensity and power of the Blessing, whose last word is "peace".

The biblical term shalom, which we translate as "peace", implies that accumulation of good things in which consists the "salvation" brought by Christ, the Messiah announced by the Prophets. We Christians therefore recognize him as the Prince of Peace. He became a man and was born in a grotto in Bethlehem to bring peace to people of good will, to all who welcome him with faith and love.

Thus, peace is truly the gift and commitment of Christmas: the gift that must be accepted with humble docility and constantly invoked with prayerful trust, the task that makes every person of good will a "channel of peace".

Let us ask Mary, Mother of God, to help us to welcome her Son and, in him, true peace. Let us ask her to sharpen our perception so that we may recognize in the face of every human person, the Face of Christ, the heart of peace!

[Pope Benedict, homily January 1st, 2007]

Dear Brothers and Sisters!

1. Let us give thanks to God, who has given us the opportunity to begin another year. As I beseech him to protect and give his grace to everyone, I offer my most cordial wishes to all for a happy New Year 2000!

On Christmas night, we listened once again to the angels' message: "Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased" (Lk 2: 14). This is the proclamation of hope which I wanted once again to present in my traditional Message for today's World Day of Peace. God loves us and he gives everyone the hope of a new time, a time of salvation and peace.

2. Yes, Christ is our peace. He calls us to love every human being without discrimination, turning our hearts and minds to thoughts of peace and removing the temptation of violence and war. The Jubilee which has just begun is a pressing invitation to love in view of a reconciled humanity.

Let us cross the threshold of a new year with a commitment to make our contribution so that peace can become the daily language of peoples. The Gospel teaches us that dialogue, cooperation, respect for life and solidarity are effective instruments for creating new relationships between peoples and countries, between rich and poor, believers and non-believers.

From every part of the earth rises a heartfelt plea for peace. Let us pray that it does not go unheard. At this moment, my thoughts turn to those who are victims of violence, to those who feel lonely and abandoned.

May Christ, the incarnate Son of God, enlighten human hearts with the gift of peace. You, Son of the Most High, were born for everyone. You are the same yesterday, today and for ever!

3. The first day of the year is placed under the special protection of Mary. Let us begin the Year 2000 under the loving gaze of the Mother of God, who gives Christ, the Prince of Peace, to the world. May she spread the mantle of her motherhood over all of us, protect us from evil and free us from hatred and violence. May she accompany humanity on the ways of peace. May every person discover in others, beyond every border, the face of brothers and sisters, friends, members of the same family.

Mary, Mother of God, make us apostles of peace!

[Pope John Paul II, Angelus January 1st, 2000]

“But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman” (Gal 4:4). Born of woman: Jesus came in this way. He did not appear in the world as an adult but, as the Gospel tells us, he was “conceived in the womb” (Lk 2;21). It was there that he made our humanity his own: day after day, month after month. In the womb of a woman, God and mankind are united, never to be separated again. Even now, in heaven, Jesus lives in the flesh that he took in his mother’s womb. In God, there is our human flesh!

On the first day of the year, we celebrate this nuptial union between God and mankind, inaugurated in the womb of a woman. In God, there will forever be our humanity and Mary will forever be the Mother of God. She is both woman and mother: this is what is essential. From her, a woman, salvation came forth and thus there is no salvation without a woman. In her, God was united to us, and if we want to unite ourselves to him, we must take the same path: through Mary, woman and mother. That is why we begin the year by celebrating Our Lady, the woman who wove the humanity of God. If we want to weave humanity into this our time, we need to start again from the woman.

Born of woman. The rebirth of humanity began from a woman. Women are sources of life. Yet they are continually insulted, beaten, raped, forced to prostitute themselves and to suppress the life they bear in the womb. Every form of violence inflicted upon a woman is a blasphemy against God, who was born of a woman. Humanity’s salvation came forth from the body of a woman: we can understand our degree of humanity by how we treat a woman’s body. How often are women’s bodies sacrificed on the profane altars of advertising, of profiteering, of pornography, exploited like a canvas to be used. Yet women’s bodies must be freed from consumerism; they must be respected and honoured. Theirs is the most noble flesh in the world, for it conceived and brought to light the love that has saved us! In our day, too, motherhood is demeaned, because the only growth that interests us is economic growth. There are mothers who risk difficult journeys desperately seeking to give a better future to the fruit of their womb, yet are deemed redundant by people with full stomachs but hearts empty of love.

Born of woman. The Bible tells us that woman come onto the scene at the height of creation, as a summation of the entire created world. For she holds within herself the very purpose of creation: the generation and safekeeping of life, communion with all things, care for all things. So it is with the Mother of God in today’s Gospel. The text tells us, “But Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart” (v. 19). She kept all these things: joy at the birth of Jesus and sadness for the lack of hospitality shown in Bethlehem; the love of Joseph and the amazement of the shepherds; the promise and the uncertainty of the future. She took everything to heart, and in her heart, she put everything in its right place, even hardships and troubles. In her heart, she lovingly set all things in order and entrusted everything to God.

In the Gospel, Mary does this a second time: at the end of the hidden life of Jesus, we are told that “his mother kept all these things in her heart” (v. 51). This repetition makes us realize that “keeping in her heart” was not something nice that Our Lady did from time to time, but something habitual. Women typically take life to heart. Women show us that the meaning of life is not found in making things but in taking things to heart. Only those who see with the heart see things properly, because they know how to “look into” each person: to see a brother apart from his mistakes, a sister apart from her failings, hope amid difficulty. They see God in all persons and things.

As we begin this new year, let us ask ourselves: Do I know how to see with the heart? Do I know how to look at people with the heart? Do I take to heart the people with whom I live? Or do I tear them down by gossip? And above all, do I put the Lord at the centre of my heart, or other values, other interests, like advancement, riches, power? Only if we take life to heart will we know how to take care and overcome the indifference all around. So let us ask for the grace to live this year with the desire to take others to heart and to care for them. And if we want a better world, a world that will be a peaceful home and not a war field, may we take to heart the dignity of each woman. From a woman was born the Prince of peace. Women are givers and mediators of peace and should be fully included in decision-making processes. Because when women can share their gifts, the world finds itself more united, more peaceful. Hence, every step forward for women is a step forward for humanity as a whole.

Born of woman. Jesus, newly born, was mirrored in the eyes of the woman, in the face of his mother. From her, he received his first caresses; with her, he exchanged the first smiles. With her began the revolution of tenderness. The Church, looking at the Baby Jesus, is called to continue that revolution. For she too, like Mary, is both woman and mother. The Church is woman and mother, and in Our Lady, she finds her distinctive traits. She sees Mary immaculate, and feels called to say no to sin and to worldliness. She sees Mary fruitful, and feels called to proclaim the Gospel and to give birth to it in people’s lives. She sees Mary a mother, and she feels called to receive every man and woman as a son or daughter.

In drawing close to Mary, the Church discovers herself, she finds her centre and her unity. The enemy of our human nature, the devil, seeks instead to divide, to highlight differences, ideologies, partisan thinking and parties. But we do not understand the Church if we regard her by starting with structures, programmes and trends, ideologies and functions. We may grasp something, but not the heart of the Church. Because the Church has a mother’s heart. And we, as her sons and daughters, invoke today the Mother of God, who gathers us together as a people of believers. O Mother, give birth to hope within us and bring us unity. Woman of salvation, to you we entrust this year. Keep it in your heart. We acclaim you, the Holy Mother of God. All together now, for three times, let us stand and acclaim the Lady, the Holy Mother of God. [with the assembly] Holy Mother of God, Holy Mother of God, Holy Mother of God!

[Pope Francis, homily January 1, 2020]