Dearest Sisters and young women in formation,
Our Advent journey leads us once again to the grotto of Bethlehem, where the mystery we contemplate each year takes on flesh and blood: “A child is born for us, a son has been given to us” (Is. 9:5).
The eternal Word of the Father, “he whom the heavens cannot contain” (St. Augustine), comes to us under the sign of fragility, surrendering himself to the poverty of our human condition.
Since then, as Christian Bobin writes, “the Most High cannot be known except through the Infinitely Small, through this God who is the height of a child….”. Since then, in order to “see” God we must not raise our eyes to heaven but lower them, because the Lord has come down to touch our humanity, revealing to us the “glory,” the value, of our existence: we are precious to him simply because we exist, simply because we are human beings. Since then, the “glory of God” dwells in littleness and weakness; his tent is pitched in the arduous and agitated soil of our times and our daily life. Since then, God’s dream is that we bring to bloom the seeds of humanity, goodness, hope, and infinity already present within us.
Christmas is a plea to take care of the living, fragile flesh of every human being, because that is where the Word becomes incarnate. It is a plea to bend over those alongside us, giving them our warmth, tenderness and solidarity, vanquishing with love every refusal to love, every division, every desperation.
Sisters, on Christmas night and as we move toward the conclusion of this year, wounded by the pandemic, violence of all kinds, and natural disasters…let us pause before the “teacher’s chair” of the Crib, as our Founder reminds us, in order to learn the lesson of love and live it in our community relationships and in our daily exercise of the apostolate:
From the crib Jesus teaches us love; from his bed of straw he tells us: This is how to love. Many say they love but do not want the discomfort involved in doing so. Their love is limited to words… (FSP47, p. 393).
A Blessed Christmas and serene New Year to all of you, also on the part of the sisters of the General Government. I extend my best wishes to your families, lay collaborators, Cooperators, friends and benefactors. We are sincerely grateful to all of them for their contribution to the proclamation of the Gospel.
With deep affection, in communion of joy and hope.
sr. Anna Caiazza
Superior General
