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by Pope Benedict XVI
Dear brothers and sisters,
I am pleased to receive you in this general audience, just days before the
celebration of the Lord's birth. During these days, the greeting on everyone's
lips is "Merry Christmas! Season's Greetings!" Let us ensure that, even in
today's society, the exchange of greetings not lose its deep religious
significance, and that the exterior aspects that play upon our heartstrings not
absorb the feast. Certainly, external signs are beautiful and important, so long
as they do not distract us, but rather help us to experience Christmas in its
truest sense -- the sacred and Christian sense -- and cause our joy to be not
superficial, but deep.
With the Christmas liturgy, the Church introduces us to the great Mystery of the
Incarnation. Christmas, in fact, is not a mere anniversary of Jesus' birth -- it
is also this, but it is more -- it is the celebration of a mystery that has
marked and continues to mark mankind's history -- God Himself came to dwell
among us (cf. John 1:14), He made Himself one of us; a mystery that concerns our
faith and our very lives; a mystery that we experience concretely in the
liturgical celebrations, especially in the Holy Mass.
Someone might ask himself: How can I live out now an event that took place so
long ago? How can I participate fruitfully in the birth of the Son of God, which
took place over 2,000 years ago? During the Holy Mass on Christmas Night, we
will repeat as a refrain to the responsorial psalm, these words: "Today a Savior
is born for us." This adverb of time "Today," which is used repeatedly
throughout the Christmas celebrations, refers to the event of Jesus' birth and
to the salvation that the incarnation of the Son of God comes to bring.
In the liturgy, this event reaches beyond the limits of space and time and
becomes actual, present; its effect continues, even amidst the passing of days,
years and centuries. In indicating that Jesus is born "today," the liturgy does
not use a meaningless phrase, but underscores that this birth affects and
permeates the whole of history -- even today, it remains a reality to which we
may attain, precisely in the liturgy. For believers, the celebration of
Christmas renews our certainty that God is really present with us, still "flesh"
and not only far away: though also with the Father, He is close to us. In that
Child born in Bethlehem, God drew near to man: we can encounter Him now -- in a
"today" whose sun knows no setting.
I would like to stress this point, because modern man -- a man of "the
sensible," of the empirically verifiable -- finds it increasingly more difficult
to open his horizons and enter the world of God. The Redemption of mankind
certainly took place at a precise and identifiable moment in history: in the
event of Jesus of Nazareth. But Jesus is the Son of God -- He is God Himself,
who not only spoke to man, showed him wondrous signs and guided him throughout
the history of salvation -- but became man and remains man. The Eternal entered
into the limits of time and space, in order to make possible an encounter with
Him "today."
The liturgical texts of Christmas help us to understand that the events of
salvation wrought by Christ are always actual -- the interest of every man and
of all mankind. When, within liturgical celebrations, we hear or proclaim this
"Today a Savior is born for us," we are not employing an empty, conventional
expression; rather, we mean that God offers us "today", now, to me, to each one
of us, the possibility of acknowledging and receiving Him like the shepherds in
Bethlehem, so that He might be born in our lives and renew them, illumine them,
transform them by His grace, by His presence.
Christmas, then, while commemorating Jesus' birth in the flesh of the Virgin
Mary -- and numerous liturgical texts put before our eyes this or that event --
is an efficacious event for us. Pope St. Leo the Great, in presenting the
profound meaning of Christmas, issued an invitation to the faithful with these
words: "Let us be glad in the Lord, dearly-beloved, and rejoice with purest joy
that there has dawned for us the day of ever-new redemption, of ancient
preparation, of eternal bliss. For as the year rolls round, there recurs for us
the commemoration of our salvation, which promised from the beginning and
accomplished in the fullness of time, will endure for ever" (Sermon 22, In
Nativitate Domini, 2,1; PL 54,193).
And again, in another Christmas homily St. Leo the Great affirms: "Today the
Maker of the world was born of a Virgin's womb, and He, who made all natures,
became the Son of her, whom He created. Today the Word of God appeared clothed
in flesh, and That which had never been visible to human eyes began to be
tangible to our hands as well. Today the shepherds learned from angels' voices
that the Savior was born in the substance of our flesh and soul (Sermon 26, In
Nativitate Domini, 6,1; PL 54,213).
There is a second aspect that I would like to touch upon briefly. The event of
Bethlehem should be considered in the light of the Paschal Mystery: The one and
the other are part of the one redemptive work of Christ. Jesus' incarnation and
birth invite us to direct our gaze to His death and resurrection: Christmas and
Easter are both feasts of the Redemption. Easter celebrates it as the victory
over sin and death: It signals the final moment, when the glory of the Man-God
shines forth as the light of day; Christmas celebrates it as God's entrance into
history, His becoming man in order to restore man to God: It marks, so to speak,
the initial moment when we begin to see the first light of dawn.
But just as dawn precedes and already heralds the day's light, so Christmas
already announces the cross and the glory of the resurrection. Even the two
times of year when we mark the two great feasts -- at least in some parts of the
world -- can help us to understand this aspect. In fact, while Easter falls at
the beginning of spring, when the sun breaks through the thick, chilly mists and
renews the face of the earth, Christmas falls right at the beginning of winter,
when the sun's light and warmth seek in vain to awaken nature enwrapped by the
cold. Under this blanket, however, life throbs and the victory of the sun and
warmth begins again.
The Fathers of the Church always interpreted Christ's birth in the light of the
whole work of Redemption, which finds its summit in the Paschal Mystery. The
incarnation of God's Son appears not only as the commencement and condition for
salvation, but as the very presence of the mystery of our salvation: God becomes
man; He is born a babe like us; He takes on our flesh to conquer death and sin.
Two important texts of St. Basil illustrate this well. St. Basil tells the
faithful: "God assumes flesh to destroy death within it hidden. Just as
antidotes to poison, when ingested, eliminate the poison's effects, and as the
shadows within a house clear with the light of the sun; so death, which had
dominated human nature, was destroyed by the presence of God. And as ice remains
solid in water as long as night endures and shadows reign, but melts at once by
the sun's heat, so death -- which had reigned until the coming of Christ -- as
soon as the grace of God our Savior appeared, and the Sun of Justice arose, 'was
swallowed up in victory' (1 Corinthians 15:54), for it cannot coexist with Life"
(Homily on the Birth of Christ, 2: PG 31,1461).
And again, in another text St. Basil issues this invitation: "Let us celebrate
the world's salvation and mankind's birth. Today Adam's guilt has been remitted.
Now we need no longer say: 'you are dust and to dust you shall return' (Genesis
3:19), but rather: united to Him who descended from heaven, you shall be
admitted into heaven (Homily on the Birth of Christ, 6: PG 31,1473).
At Christmas we encounter the tenderness and love of God, who stoops down to our
limitations, to our weakness, to our sins -- and He lowers Himself to us. St.
Paul affirms that Jesus Christ "though He was in the form of God ... emptied
Himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men"
(Philippians 2:6-7). Let us look upon the cave of Bethlehem: God lowers Himself
to the point of being laid in a manger -- which is already a prelude of His
self-abasement in the hour of His Passion. The climax of the love story between
God and man passes by way of the manger of Bethlehem and the sepulcher of
Jerusalem.
Dear brothers and sisters, let us joyously live the feast of Christmas, which
now draws near. Let us live this wondrous event: The Son of God again is born
"today"; God is truly close to each one of us, and He wants to meet us -- He
wants to bring us to Himself. He is the true light, which dispels and dissolves
the darkness enveloping our lives and mankind. Let us live the Lord's birth by
contemplating the path of God's immense love, which raised us to Himself through
the mystery of the incarnation, passion, death and resurrection of His Son, for
-- as St. Augustine affirms -- "In [Christ] the divinity of the Only Begotten
was made a partaker of our mortality, so that we might be made partakers of His
immortality" (Letter 187,6,20: PL 33: 839-840). Above all, let us contemplate
and live this Mystery in the celebration of the Eucharist, the heart of
Christmas; there, Jesus makes Himself really present -- as the true Bread come
down from heaven, as the true Lamb sacrificed for our salvation.
To you and to your families I wish a truly Christian celebration of Christmas,
such that even your exchange of greetings on that day will be expressions of the
joy of knowing that God is near and wants to accompany us along life's journey.
Thank you.
[Translation by Diane Montagna]
Pope's Message to English Speaking Audience:
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
As Christmas approaches, I offer prayerful good wishes to you and your families
for a spiritually fruitful celebration of the Lord's birth. At Midnight Mass, we
sing: "Today a Saviour is born for us". This "Today" evokes an eternal present,
for the mystery of Christ's coming transcends time and permeates all history.
"Today" – every day - we are invited to discover the presence of God's saving
love in our midst. In the birth of Jesus, God comes to us and asks us to receive
him, so that he can be born in our lives and transform them, and our world, by
the power of his love. The Christmas liturgy also invites us to contemplate
Christ's birth against the backdrop of his paschal mystery. Christmas points
beyond itself, to the redemption won for us on the Cross and the glory of the
Resurrection. May this Christmas fill you with joy in the knowledge that God has
drawn near to us and is with us at every moment of our lives.
Source: Catechesis from Pope Benedict XVI on December 21, 2011 during the
general audience held in Rome reflecting on the approaching feast of Christmas.
© Copyright 2011 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana
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