The Christmas festivity, which was so dear to the hearts of Francis and Clare, is a very special occasion for me to draw close to you all and to send you my greetings.

When the Father of all mercy sent his Son Jesus to take flesh in the womb of Mary, he pitched his tent among us (Jn 1:14) by taking to himself our frail and needy humanity. "He was rich... but he wished in this world, together with the most blessed Virgin, his Mother, to choose poverty" (EpFid II:5). His humility and littleness are an invitation to everyone to come close to him and embrace him.

The tent which God, in Christ, has come to set in our midst is the tent of communion and covenant (Isa 54:1-5). God is not fond of distances. The Son, driven by a passionate quest for humankind, leaves the Father and becomes one of us, to the extent that he makes us "no longer strangers... but citizens with the saints and members of the household of God" (Eph 2:19). To achieve this he "emptied himself... taking the form of a slave... and becoming obedient to the point of death" (Phil 2:7-8). The path which leads us to encounter one another, the path of fraternity, must of necessity follow the same route. It is "kenosis", self-emptying, before it can become joyful embrace and unity. It involves death to our egoism before it can become the creative relationship which generates new life.

God comes and wishes to remain among us: Jesus becomes the eucharistic bread to be assimilated by us and to transform us into himself. A bread of communion which (once again) becomes available to us through the "fraction", through "being broken" utterly for us. And which is renewed each day, because fraternity requires continual building up. But how many crumbs are still excluded from this bread of communion which is universal fraternity! Each Christmas invites us to this commitment: to become brothers and sisters of all, by dint of an exodus of purification and continual self-emptying which will make us both ready and eager to move towards others. Such a joyful readiness to "go forth" will conquer the temptation to take refuge in the internal or external securities which only shut us off from the dynamic of love. Otherwise neither God nor others can find a place in us: "there was no room for them in the living-space" (Lk 2:7).

God's desire to be with every human being found an outstanding fulfillment in Mary, since she became the tent of covenant and welcome by giving the Word the garment of her own flesh. Francis exclaims with delight: "All hail, his palace... his house... his tabernacle... his garment... his mother!" (SalVirt 4-5). Thanks to Mary, hostility is transformed into warm hospitality, discreet and loyal. And you, Sisters of the Second and Third Orders, can offer invaluable help to the Friars by familiarizing us again with that "maternal" warmth which is so vital to our Franciscan charism (cf. RegNB 9:11) and so necessary for creating true human fraternity.

Sisters and Brothers, the mystery of Christmas is to be found in welcoming and giving hospitality to the God who comes. But in order to come he wants to be longed for and eagerly awaited hearts that are pure, open and needy, turned completely towards him. This is how we allow ourselves to be transformed and "divinised". "God became one of us so that we might become like God": our likeness to God is in itself mission, prophecy and commitment - above all in the task of making the world in which we live more human.

I unite my greetings with those of the General Definitory and of all the friars of the General Curia. My Christmas wish for all of us is this: may the Holy Spirit inflame and transform our hearts so that we may become an epiphany of the goodness of God our Saviour and of the love of God for every man and woman.

Fraternally,

Brother Giacomo Bini, ofm
your Minister
Rome, Christmas1997