"The great gift of the Child of Bethlehem": A Christmas reflection by Pope Francis

Pope Francis prays in front of a Nativity scene in the Paul VI Audience Hall at the Vatican Dec. 9 after meeting with donors, artists and local government officials responsible for the Christmas decorations at the Vatican. The scene is a mosaic of Venetian glass tiles created by Alessandro Serena and features St. Francis and St. Clare of Assisi in celebration of the 800th anniversary of St. Francis staging the first Nativity scene. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

“The reason for our hope is this: God is with us, and God still trusts us! God the Father is generous. He comes to abide with mankind; He chooses earth as His dwelling place to remain with people and to be found where man passes his days in joy or in sorrow. Therefore, earth is no longer only ‘a valley of tears’; rather, it is the place where God Himself has pitched His tent; it is the meeting place of God with man, of God’s solidarity with men.

God willed to share in our human condition to the point of becoming one with us in the Person of Jesus, who is true Man and true God. However, there is something even more surprising. The presence of God among men did not take place in a perfect, idyllic world but rather in this real world, which is marked by so many things, both good and bad, by division, wickedness, poverty, arrogance and war. He chose to live in our history as it is, with all the weight of its limitations and of its tragedies.

In doing so, He has demonstrated in an unequaled manner His merciful and truly loving disposition toward the human creature. He is God-with-us. Jesus is God-with-us. Do you believe this? Together, let us profess: Jesus is God with us! Jesus is God with us always and forever with us in history’s suffering and sorrow. The Birth of Jesus reveals that God ‘sided’ with man once and for all to save us, to raise us from the dust of our misery, from our difficulty, from our sins.

Hence the great ‘gift’ of the Child of Bethlehem: He brings us a spiritual energy, an energy which helps us not to despair in our struggle, in our hopelessness, in our sadness, for it is an energy that warms and transforms the heart. Indeed, the Birth of Jesus brings us the good news that we are loved immensely and uniquely by God, and He not only enables us to know this love, He also gives it to us, He communicates it to us!

We may draw two considerations from the joyous contemplation of the mystery of the Son of God born for us.

The first is that if God, in the Christmas mystery, reveals Himself not as One who remains on high and dominates the universe but as the One who bends down and descends to the little and poor earth. To be like Him, we should not put ourselves above others but, indeed, lower ourselves, place ourselves at the service of others, and become small with the small and poor with the poor. Let us be sure that our brothers and sisters do not feel alone!

The second consequence: if God, through Jesus, involved Himself with man to the point of becoming one of us, it means that whatever we have done to a brother or a sister, we have done to Him. Jesus Himself reminded us of this: whoever has fed, welcomed, visited, loved one of the least and poorest of men will have done it to the Son of God.
Let us entrust ourselves to the maternal intercession of Mary, the Mother of Jesus and our Mother, that she may help us this holy Christmastide, which is already close at hand, to see in the face of our neighbor, especially the weakest and most marginalized people, the image of the Son of God made man. 

— An excerpt from the Dec. 18, 2013, general audience given by Pope Francis.