“God the Father reveals himself through the incarnation of his own Son and does so in weakness and poverty.
He sends us his only Son who “though he was rich, yet became poor, that he might enrich us with his poverty” (2 Cor 8:9).”
(GC XVIII. 8)
Dear sisters and brothers: we want to live Christmas with all of you, the life that springs from faith in God who “for my sake became man…” (EE. 104).
Before the manger, perhaps silence is the best word. May our silence be an expression of a feeling of being overwhelmed by grace. A silence that is an open path to welcome the passage of God. During these days, as Daughters of Jesus, as the Family of M. Candida, let us give space and time to contemplate this “mystery” in silence. Candida, let us give space and time to the silence of the contemplation of this “mystery”. As Pope Francis says: “The contemplation of the Christmas scene invites us to set out spiritually on a journey, attracted by the humility of the One who became man in order to meet every man. And we discover that He loves us to the point of uniting Himself to us, so that we too can unite ourselves to Him.” [1]
In contemplating the mystery of Christmas, there can be an exchange of silences in the face of a fact to which we cannot become accustomed: God becomes man. He makes us capable of Him, capable of God, and He humanizes us, He brings out the best in us when we are able to welcome Him and give ourselves as He gives Himself. Precisely evangelical poverty, to which we Daughters of Jesus are called today, enables us “to be a response to the cry of this world that is asking the best of us” (GC XVIII, 7). The wisdom contained therein is also offered to the laity.
Recently we heard how the Synod of the Amazon reflected the initiative to bring to the center what is in the periphery: “This synod has the courage to take an existential periphery and bring it to the center, to give it the microphone, to value it. The periphery has its majority voice here. The center does not command the periphery, it is at the service of the periphery of the Church, of pastoral care. Pastoral care has to respond to reality, to its concreteness”.[2]
We would like to make this dynamic our own every day: that of walking with everyone, for which it is essential to slow our pace; that of serving the peripheries by bringing them to the center of our lives; that of giving the word to the other in order to, in receptive silence, welcome it in availability; that of collaborating for the common good when no one will see it, let alone appreciate it – over and over again; there are many gestures we can make to collaborate for the well-being of others, of the planet, “we still have time”?
It is the dynamic of one who is “on the way out”, of one who comes “out of his own love, desire and interest”. The first to come out is God himself. He is the source of our joy, of our hope. That is why we celebrate these days. It is he who encourages our lives, who calls us to “reproduce the image of his Son” (Rom 8:23) and to be his collaborators.
Let us pray for all of us that, as we contemplate him, he may transform our lives, so that our presence in the world may be more “his presence”.
With fraternal affection, Merry Christmas!
Graciela, Thelma, Teresa, Yajaira, Sonia, Mª Teresa and Ana
Rome, December 2019
[1] Apostolic Letter Admirabile signum, 1
[2] D. Rossano Sala SDB. “Missionary Synodality”. Charismatic families 2019
