- Dear Sisters,
In this Advent Season we journey towards the mystery of Christmas which reveals to us the depths of the love of God that overwhelm us and we adore the child God who assumes our humanity.
Christmas is an interior invitation. It speaks to our disciples’ hearts and renews our will to give ourselves as He gave Himself to everyone inconspicuously, a child like any other.
The intuition of Magdalene, “Inspice et fac secundum exemplar”, referring to the Crucified One, invites us to grasp the virtues which Christ lived on the cross, centre of our charism expresses the contemplation and the action proper to our spirituality which we can apply at any moment in the life of Jesus, even that of Christmas.
Jesus also asks us to incarnate ourselves in history as He became incarnated, to intensify our evangelizing mission, to help brothers and sisters and to alleviate their sufferings with our actions.
Our littleness, our limitations, our frailties, if recognized and accepted, are not obstacles to the mission because they increase in us the confidence and certainty that God works through our weaknesses and open us to brothers and sisters who are the incarnation of Christ today. They help us to understand how important it is to live fraternity, share what we are and have, they ignite in us the desire to start a new life, to “be reborn” so that every day the mystery of God is realized in us.
I wonder: how can we celebrate Christmas in reading the signs of our times?
The pastoral visit of Pope Francis in these days challenges us and clearly invites us to a prophetic witness, it is a pressing invitation to “act”, to work in the various contexts of the time in which we live.
Let us deepen personally and as a community in the light of Christmas how to live our evangelizing mission. How can we be bearers of peace with our life and our action?
“I announce to you a great joy that will be for all the people: today, in the city of David, a Savior who is Christ the Lord is born for you” (Lk 2:10). A greater part of humanity has not yet received this announcement; the birth of Jesus is a bearer of joy, our mission is to make this message known to everyone: joy is possible, fraternity is possible, peace is possible because Jesus, upon entering the world, brought the omnipotence of Love and makes us all partakers of His Love.
Wishing each other “Merry Christmas” means walking together towards prophetic communion, intensifying the quality of our life, which begins in our hearts and extends to everyone.
Let us renew our contemplation with Mary, Mother of the Son of God and Mother of all of us, and let us ask her to help us to be bearers of goodness.
May our presence, in the 32 Nations in which we find ourselves, make us bearers of the joy and tenderness of Christmas towards the sisters and brothers who are close to us and may our prayers reach everyone.
Dear Sisters, together with my Councilors, I wish all of you and your families a Merry Christmas!
With affection
