In his days may justice flourish
and peace abound, until the moon is no more. (Ps 72,7).
These days of Christmas invite us once again to turn our gaze and contemplate the Family of Nazareth in Bethlehem, where God becomes man in a small village of Judea in a poor stable, among animals: a birth that went unnoticed in that place, just some shepherds guarding sheep in the surrounding fields. Simple men discovered the event that would change the history of humanity.
Jesus comes to our world to open the doors to encounter God, to reconcile us with the Triune God and to invite us to work for his kingdom of peace and justice. But every day we are more and more surprised by the multitude of conflicts throughout our world, over territorial disputes, for ethnic, economic or any other reasons, which undoubtedly have an negative effect on the development of peoples and individuals. In recent months we have been shocked by the war that has taken place in the very land where Jesus was born, causing pain to thousands of families who are displaced, seeking to escape from the places of conflict, but condemned to misery, with hardly any resources with which to cover their basic needs and with an uncertain future.
Perhaps in our hyper-connected and over-informed world, the birth of Jesus continues to go unnoticed, as in Bethlehem. It is not news, just as dozens of wars continue to cause so much death and pain and we do not even know that they are happening right now. This ignorance helps us live the birth of Jesus superficially, with lights and celebrations, but without going deeper into what his birth means for each one of us and for our world, a Christmas that does not transform us, but continues to lull us to sleep.
But we have to wake up from this drowsiness, from this sleepiness that paralyses us, and we have to discover the true joy of the birth of Jesus, as did those shepherds of Bethlehem, who left everything to discover God in the tenderness of a child, in the simplicity of the family of Nazareth, a family that had said YES to God in the Annunciation to Mary and in Joseph's dream, despite not knowing how all this was going to happen, but trusting in God. In prayerful contemplation of the child of Bethlehem, of that personal YES to God, let us continue to ask for our earth "that in his days justice may flourish and peace till the moon fails" and in our everyday relationships may we be generators and transmitters of the peace and harmony that Jesus brings to the heart of every human being, that we may always seek what unites us and always welcome difference as a richness to be respected in our brothers and sisters.
A blessed Christmas to all!
Luis Jesús García-Lomas – Spain
Member of the International Communications Team.