By La Civiltà Cattolica
This is the third consecutive Christmas that we are living in a time of war. The Russian-Ukrainian conflict, which began in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea and the support given by Russia to the separatist forces in the Donbass, entered a crucial phase on Feb 24, 2022, involving many European countries, the United States and others in support of Ukraine. On Oct 7, 2023, Hamas suddenly carried out a brutal massacre in Israeli territory, killing about 1,200 civilians and military personnel and abducting more than 240 hostages to the Gaza Strip. Israel’s response, despite invoking self-defense, has over time become disproportionate and disturbingly violent. It has lasted for more than a year and there is no end in sight. In recent months the hostility between Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah party has been rekindled. Iran and Yemen’s Houthis have also become involved, further widening the confrontation. What Pope Francis described a few years ago as “a world war in pieces,” is proving all too true. Only now the different “pieces” are tragically coming together.
Unchecked fury is hitting everyone, especially civilians, the elderly, women and children. The ruins of houses bury their inhabitants, entire neighborhoods are razed to the ground, hospitals are targeted as possible terrorist hideouts, delirious people wander around not knowing where to go, everywhere the bodies of dead children are to be found. There is a shortage of basic necessities, such as water and medicine. Care for the wounded is fraught, safe havens are rare as are chances to reorganize the food supply chain. Everywhere we see rubble, blood, despair, death: realities which recall a distant past that we thought we had left behind forever. The pope’s constant appeals for truces and negotiations, in which he reiterates that “war is always a defeat” and a “useless slaughter,” remain largely unheeded. The warning of Article 11 of the Italian Constitution, which “repudiates war as an instrument” for the sake of the freedom of other peoples and as a means of settling international disputes is as relevant as ever.
The Mystery of Christmas
In such a dramatic situation we celebrate the Lord’s birth this year. Jesus is born once again into our history and into our lives. This is the perennial story, a story that embodies God’s plan that should unfold as rich and serene, but instead emerges on to a scene of misery, failure, violence and death. Yet this very fact helps us to understand the true meaning of Christmas. What does it mean for us that Jesus is born and laid in a manger, that he becomes a helpless baby, that he finds himself and his parents bereft of support, because for them “there was no place in the inn” (Lk 2:6)?
In 1933 Bonhoeffer wrote: “Christ in the manger . God is not ashamed of human baseness; he penetrates into it, chooses a human creature as his instrument and performs wonders there where one least expects it. God is close to lowliness, He loves what is lost, what is neglected or considered insignificant, what is marginalized, weak and afflicted. Where we say, ‘lost,’ there God says, ‘found.’ Where we say, ‘judged,’ there he says, ‘saved.’ Where we say, ‘No!’ there God says, ‘Yes!’ Where we avert our gaze with indifference or haughtiness, there God sets his gaze, full of incomparable burning love. Where we say, ‘Despicable,’ there God exclaims, ‘Blessed.’ Where in our lives we have ended up in a situation where we can only be ashamed of ourselves and before God, where we think that even God should now be ashamed of us, where we feel distant from God as never before in life, right there God is close to us as never before, there God wants to break into our lives, makes us feel his approach, so that we understand the miracle of his love, his closeness and his grace” (D. Bonhoeffer, ‘Avvento,’ in Id., Riconoscere Dio al centro della vita. Testi per l’anno liturgico, Brescia, Queriniana, 2015, 13). It required Bonhoeffer’s courage to reaffirm the truth of the Incarnation in a world engulfed by a war that would not spare him shortly afterward.
Here is the mystery of Christmas, the extraordinary implications of Jesus’ birth. By being born in Bethlehem, the Son of God takes our very flesh, becomes poor, becomes a servant, becomes one of us. He comes into the world helpless, bereft of everything, in precariousness, far from the seductions of power and in profound obscurity. The Lord wants to make himself close to us, to make our whole condition his own. Jesus accepts our story, despite its meanness, its wretchedness, its despicable aspects, takes it upon himself, accepts it, loves it and redeems it: it is a truth that one can redeem only what one truly loves. Therefore, Christmas is the brightest sign of a salvation given to those who were incapable of embracing it: a salvation to lose.
The New Time
Ignatius of Antioch wrote, in his Letter to the Ephesians, “When God manifested himself in human form for a newness of eternal life, what had long been decided had begun” (19:3). The Letter to Diognetus adds, “The time came that God had appointed to manifest his kindness and power and he himself delivered up his own Son as a ransom for us, the holy for the criminal, the innocent for the guilty, the righteous for the unrighteous, the incorruptible for the corruptible, the immortal for the mortal” (9:2).
The coming of the Lord marked the time we are living in as comprehensively new. It is the ultimate time that prepares us for the life to come. All human history, not just Israel’s, is preparation for the newness that God accomplished “when the fullness of time had come” (Gal 4:4). It is no accident that the birth of Jesus marks a break between a before and an after, between the past and the present, and that the years have been counted from the birth of Jesus, because since then everything has truly become new: history, life, human relationships, the present and the future.
Now it is no longer true what the ancient sage Qohelet proclaimed, “There is nothing new under the sun” (Eccl 1:9). Nor is what the early Greek philosophers assured their hearers regarding the eternal return of all things. The absolute novelty of what has transpired is that Christmas has transformed the world, profoundly marking life and time. Jesus “is the light of all people; the light that shines in the darkness” (Jn 1:4-5). It is true that darkness did not recognize it, but neither could it overpower it. For a humanity that has been revived by a God who came to “plant his tent among us” (Jn 1:14), tomorrow is assured, hope cannot fail. The Lord Jesus, poor like us, a wayfarer like us, on a journey similar to ours, burdened with toil and suffering, disappointment and discouragement, gives meaning to our precariousness, our worthlessness, our nothingness, so that a new path of trust, dialogue, serenity and peace may open up in the world.
It is only in this spirit that we can live our Christmas, a third Christmas of war, of a war that, instead of ending, is intensifying, especially in Israel and surrounding lands. This embraces the Holy Land where Jesus was born, where he lived, where he proclaimed the Gospel, where he was crucified and rose again to save humanity. Perhaps it is no coincidence that Bethlehem is in Palestinian territory, and Nazareth in Israel is populated by Arabs. It is located in the north, in Upper Galilee, where the Syrian Golan Heights end and where the border with Lebanon can be glimpsed, and it is the land where Jesus lived in silence and obscurity for 30 years. The land of Jesus is on fire, and it would indeed be a miracle if Christmas could be celebrated with a truce, with a “cease-fire,” as has already happened with Hezbollah, to give a sign of goodwill, “that – as we ask in the liturgy – enemies may speak to each other again, adversaries join hands, and peoples seek to meet together. By the working of your power it comes about, Lord, that hatred is overcome by love, revenge gives way to forgiveness” (Roman Missal, Preface of the Eucharistic Prayer for Reconciliation II). Let us pray, then, that we may rediscover the sense of the human that is intrinsic to every person, and above all, that we may rediscover the fraternity that qualifies us as being children of the Father who is in heaven, the Father of all.
The Proclamation to the Shepherds
In this ominous and gloomy situation the announcement of joy and peace addressed to the shepherds is heard once again. The angel appears to them and says, “Do not be afraid; for see, I am bringing you good news of great joy : to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord” (Lk 2:10-11). Immediately afterwards a multitude of the heavenly army appears, praising God, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!” (Lk 2:14).
“Do not be afraid” is the first message of the angel. Despite all that is happening, it is necessary to have confidence, it is necessary not to be overwhelmed by fear, because there is also the announcement of “great joy.” What might such an announcement mean for us today? Might it not be employed as an evasion from the painful reality that hangs over us? The Church, in spite of everything, has the courage to proclaim, right here and now, that the hope of living Christmas in a Christian way must not fail, that it is a gift and a commitment to which we must remain open, even if our lives are destined to be a continual waiting, an advent that seems to have no end, a prayer that still awaits an answer.
Unfortunately, over time, the celebration of Christmas has largely lost its true meaning, becoming a secular family feast, almost a holiday that is – as Pope Francis called it – “a victim of commercialization and consumerism” (“Audience to Artists” Dec 16, 2023). Sometimes it is celebrated with a wastefulness that seems an offense to the poverty of so many people and their suffering. This is not what Christmas is all about. May the dramatic situation in which we are living give us the chance to rediscover the profound meaning of Christmas, of a God who becomes poor, a child, helpless for us.
‘The Word became flesh’
Two biblical texts define the truth of Christmas. The first, already quoted, is that of John: “The Word became flesh” (Jn 1:14). The second is Paul’s: “When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, that we might receive adoption as children” (Gal 4:4-5). Here is the Incarnation: Jesus took not only what is great and beautiful in men and women, but also what is small, poor, miserable, failing, and shameful. He also took on weakness, helplessness, the consequences of sin and even the humiliating death of a criminal. But the Lord did not take on human sin, because it is rebellion against God and always creates division. Nevertheless, in his baptism in the Jordan, he put himself among sinners to be in everything close to us.
“Though he was in the form of God, he emptied himself” (Phil 2:6): he even made himself nothing, “became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:8). This is the truth of Christmas, the sacrament of our salvation, the sign of “Emmanuel,” the God with us, the God who is near, who walks with us and beside us, and shares not only our joy but also our suffering in all its drama. Therefore – this is the great truth of Christmas – we are not alone, we do not live, we do not suffer, we do not die alone, because the Lord Jesus is with us. Strengthened by this conviction, let us then confidently dispose ourselves to live the Christmas celebration in recollection, prayer, hope and peace of heart.
May Mary, Mother of Jesus and mother at Christmas, intercede for us with her Son so that He may give us peace!
To all our subscribers and readers we wish a Holy Christmas and a New Year filled with hope, peace and fraternity.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.32009/22072446.0125.2 – La Civiltà Cattolica
