Dear Women and Men Religious,<\/p>\n
I have just sent to your \u201chouses\u201d my warmest Christmas greetings.\u00a0 I wish now to accompany them with a brief meditation on the mystery of the One who \u201cfor us came down from heaven.\u201d\u00a0 It is an incredible gift which we receive, one that should inundate our very lives, making us messengers of mercy, joy and hope.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cFor us He came down from Heaven\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Dear Women and Men Religious,<\/p>\n We are preparing to celebrate another Christmas.\u00a0 Once again we are given the grace to hear anew the joyous and overwhelming announcement \u201cGod so loved the world that he gave us his only Son (John 3:16).\u00a0 For this reason, we proclaim in the Creed \u2013 the Son of God \u201cfor us men and for our salvation came down from heaven\u2026 and became man.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe came down from heaven.\u201d\u00a0 The Creator of all things, He who dwells in heaven, who created the earth and entrusted it into our hands, did not remain in heaven.\u00a0 Because He is love (1 John 4:16) and love always seeks to draw closer to that which it loves, the Son of God has wished to personally acquaint himself with our situation on earth.\u00a0 To fulfill this deep desire \u201cthe Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us\u201d (John 1:14).\u00a0 He became one like us, shared our life even until death, and placed his life into our death.\u00a0 He saved us.<\/p>\n God knows us not only from the height of his omniscience.\u00a0 He knows us because he has \u201centered\u201d into the depth of the history of each and every one of us.\u00a0 He took that upon himself.\u00a0 He descended into all our events to become more intimate and close to us than we are to ourselves.\u00a0 He took our human nature and shared everything with us:\u00a0 who we are, what we want, what we suffer, what we live at all times.\u00a0 \u201cBy his incarnation, the Son of God has in a certain way united himself with each man \u2013 says Gaudium et Spes – he has truly been made one of us, like us in all things except sin\u201d (no. 22).<\/p>\n Struck by this incredible love St. Augustine exclaims: \u201cWake up, you that sleep\u2026 for you God has become man\u201d (Sermon 181, 1).<\/p>\n \u201cHe became man.\u201d\u00a0 Since Jesus, the Son made man, has entered into contact with every human life, taking upon himself all its aspects, no one can consider his history as exclusively \u201chis own\u201d.\u00a0 No one can say \u201cI am alone\u201d and declare \u201cI belong only to myself.\u201d\u00a0 If we take Christmas seriously, everyone should in all truth, use \u201cwe\u201d whenever speaking of self.\u00a0 One should not say, I love, I suffer, I hope but rather say:\u00a0 we \u2013 that is, the Lord and myself \u2013 we love, we work, we suffer, we hope.\u00a0 Every act therefore, no matter how small, done to another, for good or for ill, is really done to Jesus.\u00a0 And of these, we will have to give an account (Matthew 25).<\/p>\n The Word of God has joined himself in solidarity with us, not only in that which is positive within us but also in our limitations, pain, failures and poverty. \u00a0So suffering too \u2013 in all its forms \u2013 precisely because it is shared by Jesus, can be redeemed, can be lived with love and so transformed into a spring of life, peace and unity.\u00a0 Everything therefore, finds its reason for being in the Word of God:\u00a0 He gives meaning and value to all human suffering and makes to germinate what is sown with love.<\/p>\n In particular, Jesus Christ saves and frees us from our sins by showing us and bestowing upon us the \u201cmercy\u201d of God the Father, as Pope Francis recalled and proclaimed to the entire world on December 8 on the occasion of the inauguration of the special Jubilee Year of Mercy:\u00a0 \u201cWhen faced with the gravity of sin, God responds with the fullness of mercy.\u00a0 Mercy will always be greater than any sin, and no one can place limits on the love of God who is ever ready to forgive\u201d (Misericordiae Vultus, no. 3).<\/p>\n Therefore let us celebrate Christmas!\u00a0 Let us exchange gifts and good wishes!<\/p>\n The gift of Christ is his very self, present and alive among us.\u00a0 Let us ask Mary, Mother of God and our Mother to help obtain for us through the humble and penetrating gaze of faith, the realization that Jesus is \u201cGod with us.\u201d\u00a0 Nothing will be as before, and everything will become a source of joy if, at this Christmas time, we will realize with renewed wonder that the Lord is close to us with his infinite mercy; that He accompanies us with unfailing loyalty; that He loves us to an infinitely greater extent than we love ourselves; that He comes to our rescue with a force that overcomes all obstacles, \u201cbecause nothing is impossible with God\u201d (cf. Luke 1:37).<\/p>\n I wish for all of us, that the Lord will give us a heart like his, a heart which opens and expands, full of solicitude towards others, towards their needs and expectations.\u00a0 I wish, in particular, that in the New Year we can bring to all, believers and those who are far from faith, \u201cthe balm of mercy\u2026as a sign that the Kingdom of God is already present in our midst!\u201d (MV no. 5), thereby making our homes and our communities \u201can oasis of mercy\u201d (MV, no. 12).\u00a0\u00a0 God came down to us.\u00a0 We too, let us \u201ccome down\u201d towards our brothers and sisters!<\/p>\n We will then be a Christmas that continues:\u00a0 living each day of the New Year of 2016 as a gift of love to all who approach us, thereby filling the world with peace and happiness.<\/p>\n Dear women and men religious, in the name of Pope Francis I renew to you the esteem and gratitude of the Church.\u00a0 I wish all of you a Holy Christmas and I extend to you my heartfelt blessing.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n +Luigi Bonazzi<\/p>\n Apostolic Nuncio<\/p>\n December 17, 2015<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Message of the Apostolic Nuncio, Christmas 2015<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[39,22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nuntiatura.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1795"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nuntiatura.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nuntiatura.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nuntiatura.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nuntiatura.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1795"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.nuntiatura.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1797,"href":"http:\/\/www.nuntiatura.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1795\/revisions\/1797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nuntiatura.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nuntiatura.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nuntiatura.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}