At Christmas you too can be born again!
by Mgr Luciano Alimandi
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - Christmas is almost here and the Gospel urges us to prepare the way for the Lord who comes! What does this mean? Great Saint Augustine tells us that "preparing the way" is about being humble of heart, like John the Baptist, by becoming more humble we too can welcome the Messiah, make room for him. Since God is love, preparing the way for him is also about love, increasing our love, our goodness of heart. In other words, unless we are oriented towards sincere goodness, towards disinterested love for others, we cannot welcome the Lord.
How often in relations with others even consecrated persons take for granted, what can never be taken for granted: being good to others! True goodness of heart to be such, can only be unconditioned: "If you love those who love you, what credit can you expect? Even sinners love those who love them" (Lk 6, 32) Jesus says.
The world as it watches us will hesitate to convert until it sees in us charity which is lived the kind that led Paul to exclaim: "Love is always patient and kind; love is never jealous; love is not boastful or conceited, it is never rude and never seeks its own advantage, it does not take offence or store up grievances. Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but finds its joy in the truth. It is always ready to make allowances, to trust, to hope and to endure whatever comes. Love never comes to an end." (1 Cor 13, 4-8). Benedict XVI teaches that "in every small but sincere act of love there is all the meaning of the universe " (Angelus del 18 November 2007). This genuine goodness is the most precious thing in the world. So when it is a question of "loving", a true Christian cannot do as many do - be content with 'opportunist love, because rather than prepare the way for the Lord, this would close it for us and for others!
How and how much must a Christian love, to what point must he be good to others? The great solemnity of Christmas, the culmination of the time of waiting, shows us that true love is unlimited, unconditioned, it is total, it does not deceive and it is not deceived. True love imitates God "who so loved the world to give his only Son" (Jn 3, 16). God never deceives anyone, he gives his whole self.
A mother who gives her whole self to the infant she carries under her heart imitates God; she does not deceive herself or others because she truly loves! It is sweet to meditate in the Gospel on the truth of God's love which is likened to the light. People who love are immersed in love, they are children of the light, as John says: "Anyone who loves his brother remains in light and there is in him nothing to make him fall away" (1Jn 2,10).
Outside of God, the true Light which illuminates the world, how could we ever find true love? Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the three kings, the apostles and all the others would never have found love. If God had not revealed himself in Jesus Christ, on Christmas night, how could we have found Him? So this night is the most luminous of all humanity's nights, its splendour touches all men and women of good will: all who are ready for true love!
Advent with Christmas is the opportune time to resolve to be kinder to others, especially to those who are not kind to us. Only if we are more charitable, compassionate, renouncing our opportunism, will we reach the stable in Bethlehem. The Star of Jesus will appear on the horizon of our life and illuminate it. Those who seek true love with all their heart sooner or later find themselves in front of the Child and his Mother. This journey to the cradle in Bethlehem, all told, begins with our conception. A mother's womb is the first cradle of love, the first contact which we have as unconscious beings with the love of God, who created life as a gift. In the womb of our mother in a sense we celebrate the first Christmas of our existence, our first birth to life.
When accompanied by love and faith of our parents we find the Lord Jesus and Mary his Mother, in the great mystery of Christmas, it is as if we return to that first womb, that first embrace of love, except this love is truly 'new' and 'eternal'.
May this Christmas renew our joy at belonging to God for ever, and our wonder at knowing that he holds us in his hand, as Jesus tells us: "The sheep that belong to me listen to my voice; I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life; they will never be lost and no one will ever steal them from my hand. The Father, for what he has given me, is greater than anyone, and no one can steal anything from the Father's hand" (Jn 10, 27-29).
(Agenzia Fides 19/12/2007; righe 56, parole 847)
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