"The Word became flesh and lived among us": familiar words, paradoxical words, words that struggle to express the unbelievable union between God and humankind. The Most High assumes the poor and meager form of a tiny, defenseless infant, so helpless that everyone wants to take him in their arms. Nobody could possibly be afraid of him. He has put himself completely at our mercy.

The God who has entered the very heart of human history, the God unveiled in Jesus, is poor, lowly, an insignificant scrap of humanity, indigent and in need of everything - but above all a beggar seeking the alms of our love.

God is poverty: this was the startling discovery made by Francis and Clare. They promptly dropped everything in order to seek out and follow the One who had sought them out. Everything else was forgotten. Swiftly they ran, without calculations, without conditions, without contracts, in absolute abandonment: "Do with me what you will: whatever you choose to do with me, I thank you" (Charles de Foucauld).

God is found only by those who are willing to walk the neglected byways of poverty, for only here are found the radical detachment and freedom which make space for God to be born once more. Since that first Christmas night, whose very poverty highlighted the presence of what was most necessary, God continues to search among us for that same one thing necessary: a womb ready and receptive, a motherly tenderness for the One who is to come, and a humble handmaid who will be overshadowed by the Spirit so that the Lord can be born once more in the world. Christmas comes again when despite the darkness of our sin and betrayal we allow God's presence to shine through us; when our outward deeds become the sign of a deepening and more fruitful relationship within; when, in short, we become an epiphany, a manifestation of God to others and to the world.

Christmas comes again when we succeed in glimpsing beyond the appearances, beyond the intricate and contradictory patterns of history, the pangs of a new birth in every event, and in each encounter the whimpering of an infant newly delivered for us. Where others see nothing more than coincidence or events without meaning we descry and welcome a living Presence.

Since that first Christmas we are no longer alone. God has never abandoned us. Rather, it is we who have often attempted to run away from God in fevered pursuit of a false and alienating image that is at variance with God's desire. And we've ended up feeling restless and dissatisfied, prisoners of our own confused longings.

Each Christmas is an assurance that there is no longer any need for panic or flight either from ourselves or from the God who seeks us and awaits our return. Christmas is and must always be a further stage in the journey, so simple and so difficult, which leads us back to that fiery encounter in which we are shown who we are, and who we must become.

Beloved Sisters and Brothers, how beautiful it would be to celebrate this Holy Year Christmas with the same sentiments Mary experienced when she conceived and gave birth to our Savior! To leave ourselves totally in God's hands, to make room in our hearts for the action of God's power which makes us fruitful, and thus to bring Christ to birth once more for the life of the world. This is the essential mission of our lives. To celebrate Christmas is not just to conjure up a nostalgic memory of something that happened long, long ago: it is to welcome now the seed of divine life already within us and to allow it to germinate. It is to "conceive" the Word so that it can become visible, credible, and really present once again. Our life is an invitation to "give birth" to God in ourselves and among others.

For every one of us, man or woman, young or old, healthy or sick, the fundamental commitment and the primary mission has to be this: to make God present in the world at this moment of history. In this way the journey we began during the Holy Year of Jubilee will continue until our definitive meeting with the Father.

This is my wish and greeting for each of you. May the Lord bless us all, may the face of God shine on us and, in the only Son made flesh, may God give us peace!

Prot. n 090355