Let us return God’s love. The priest tells: On Christmas Day, a little girl came to the sacristy. I asked: “What would you like?” She said: “That’s for you, Mr. Pastor.” And she handed me a folded paper. I opened it. A Christmas tree was drawn on it, and underneath it was written in children’s handwriting: “I like you, Mr. Pastor!” It was my best Christmas present in recent years. The little girl’s words “This is for you” expressed something quite personal.
On today’s most beautiful day of the year, God similarly – very personally – says to each one of us: This is for you. And he directs our gaze to his Son. The birth of Jesus Christ is proof of God’s love for us.
Evangelist St. John says about it: “The true light that enlightens every person has come into the world” (John 1:9). What does it mean that the true light that enlightens every person has come into the world?
Let’s imagine a father of a family who is experiencing a crisis of faith at the time of the Nativity of the Lord Jesus. He is troubled by how God, who is infinite, perfect, and almighty, could become a man and be born in such an environment. Therefore, he understands the birth of Christ as a beautiful, heart-catching legend – and nothing more. After dinner, he refused to go to midnight mass with his wife and children. But he couldn’t sleep. He heard geese hooting in the yard. He got up quickly. There were wild geese in the yard. They were tired and it was very cold. He felt sorry for them. He decided to let them into the empty barn. He opened it, and pure grain, but the geese did not want to go into the barn. They were afraid. Then he thought: If only I could be a goose for a moment and tell them in their language so that they would understand me, that I do not want to harm them. And then it was as if a light went on in his head. He realized that God had sent him geese, to help him remove doubts and unbelief regarding the birth of God. He understood why the Son of God came to earth and was born as a Child.
Today we remember one of the mysteries of our faith. The second divine person, Jesus Christ, came into the world. The evangelist John very wisely called Jesus the Word, in the Greek original “Logos”. At that time, this word was used with several meanings in philosophy and theology; also to denote the birth of some divine being from another, by an act of the mind, by thinking. Just as human thought is the “word” of reason, as if it were its fruit, so also the second divine person is the “Word”, that is, the fruit of the first divine person. Although already in the Old Testament this concept appears at least in its basic features, as teaching about “God’s wisdom” (Wisdom 7,22-8,1; Proverbs 8,21-31; Sir 24,1-25), but they have not yet come to the concept of God’s Word as a divine person. The Evangelist John uses this bold idea to express the mystery of the inner life of the Holy Trinity.
Christmas reminds us that God is our Father, that he loves us, and that he wants to give us the most precious gift. During the holidays, we especially remember and wish for health, peace, and love…
Jesus Christ came to complete the prophets and reveal to us how we should live and what to believe to gain eternal life in God’s kingdom.
God the Father could have arranged for his Son to be born in a different, comfortable, more humane environment, and he could be welcomed even by the powerful and famous of the world. God arranged things so that no one could say that Christ came into the world under better circumstances than those in refugee camps, prisons, outside the homeland, and the like.
Christ was born in such a way that no one would reproach him that his life and circumstances were easier. The birth of Christ in poverty and humility is eloquent and appealing, as well as the fact that he knew the exile in Egypt, the silence of Nazareth and that he could say: “Foxes have their hiding places and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (Mt 8, 20). Jesus knew hunger, persecution, rejection, torture, and death because of us. He knew what it was to cry, to feel alone and abandoned… Nothing human was unknown to him. He became like us in everything except sin. All because he loved us. “God is love” (1 John 4:16).
When we look at the manger and say that the Child Jesus is laughing, that he wants to embrace us with his childish arms, we are reminded of the importance and need to return to God, to live in purity of heart, without sin, and to build a life of grace in ourselves. May the song of the angels: “Glory to God in the highest…” (Luke 2:14) be the beginning of our new acceptance of Jesus Christ and life with him. It is said that Pope Pius XII. had a telephone in his office that had one peculiarity: it was only one-way. The Pope could communicate with the whole world, but no one could call the Pope directly. He once sighed: “Nobody calls the Pope.”
Maybe sometimes it seems to us that God is too far away to find him, to “phone” him, to communicate with him. We realize what happened on the first Christmas. God came down to us, a two-way line was “established” between God and man. And so through Christ we can “telephone” directly to God, we can find him, communicate with him, and reach him.
Advertising for mobile phones has the slogan: “For people to talk to each other”. An advertisement for Christmas can read: “For people to talk to God”. God with us! Let us be penetrated by this joyous message of Christmas. We are not alone! May this message fill our hearts with joy and certainty that even in the greatest suffering and problems, in moments of small-mindedness and doubt, we are not alone. God is with us.
We need peace today more than ever. We hear the words terrorism, war, violence, murder, and death every day. Why? Is it not because we have not yet understood Christ’s coming to the world?
We have filled Christmas with many customs: firstly, finding presents, cleaning, decorating trees, cooking… How nervous we are many times when we simply can’t do something… But that’s not what Christmas is about. Christmas is a time when God tells us something very personal: I love you. Let’s free this Christmas from unnecessary haste so that we can also say to God: Lord, I love you. What has changed over the years about the birth of the Lord Jesus?
On Christmas Eve 1914, there was peace in the trenches of the Western Front of World War I. No shooting. But despite this, the weapons remained aimed at the enemy’s trenches. A group of English soldiers began to talk about how they spent this holy evening at home. Suddenly they heard distant singing. They leaned over the edge of the trench and listened. It was a German Christmas carol that echoed from the enemy trenches. When the enemies finished the song, the English soldiers were speechless. After a moment, one of them broke the silence. He began to sing a well-known English carol. Gradually, others joined him. They sang loudly, so loudly that it could be heard by the German trenches. As soon as they finished, the Germans immediately started singing the song Silent Night. The English joined in their language. And so the same song was heard in two languages on the battlefield.
The English suddenly noticed. A German soldier came out of the enemy trenches. He walked slowly and waved a white cloth. When he got closer, they saw that he was holding packets of chocolates in his other hand. All the soldiers slowly came out of the trenches. The battlefield became a neutral ground, where they shook hands, and gave each other candy, cigarettes, and alcohol. They showed each other photos of their loved ones, from whom the war separated them. There was only one battle that night – and that was to win the Christmas Eve football they ended up playing.
Finally, they returned to the trenches. They pointed their guns at each other again. But it was not the same for these soldiers. The enemy was no longer faceless. Now they were friends who could gift each other, who played football. The silent holy night, the night of the birth of Jesus Christ, befriended these hostile military forces. The next day, both the English and German units were transferred from this section of the front.
The soldiers no longer saw the others as enemies, but as their brothers.
The Christmas holidays have also entered our hearts. On these festive days, the guns have probably fallen silent on the various fronts where we “fight” against our neighbors. How many broken relationships between us call us to arms to carry out revenge, and retribution for various injustices that have befallen us? May we be able to recognize these neighbors as our brothers on these holy days. Christ comes for us as well as for them. This truth should disarm us so much that in the following days we will not be able to raise an imaginary weapon against our neighbor: after all, this is a brother…
The priest was most delighted by the little girl’s ordinary card, where a Christmas tree was drawn with the words: This is for you! Strong words because they expressed something personal. And we are also aware of that today. God rightfully expects something personal from us, with which we want to make him happy and with which we want to enrich our neighbors and ourselves.
