My Dear Brothers and Sisters:

With all the Church, we celebrate the solemnity of the Birth of the Lord during the Year of the Faith. In this special occasion, we cast a look of faith over the birth of Jesus; indeed, this is a great “mystery of the faith”, that we welcome in a humble, reverent and thankful way.

With Mary, we renew our faith in the design of the savior from God, who wants to come to encounter humanity in a manner so suprising, sending the Eternal Son, to be born human, through through a woman; with Mary, we believe that nothing is impossible to God, even to empty himself of His glory to submit to the conditions of the creature in time and in space.

With St. Joseph, we believe that the Son born of Mary was not conceived in her by the work of man, but through the action of the Holy Spirit; therefore, He is the Son of the Almighty God that for her was born man and is made brother of humanity. With Joseph, we also believe in the mysterious “work of the Holy Spirit” in Mary and we learn and admir and love so much. the Mother of Jesus Christ and her husband St. Joseph, “a just man”.

Welcoming the announcement of the angel to the shepherds of Betheleham, we believe that the Glory of God, even without appearing, is present in the child that was born of Mary and to whom Joseph gave the name of Jesus; He is the eternal son, from always united to the glory of the Father that is made small and fragile to be near all and to year of the fragile human condition, in solidarity with all those that are small and do not have the glory of this world.

With the shepherds of Bethlehem, we admire the glory of God that manifests itself in the child Jesus and we rejoice with what we hear and was transmitted to us about him, even without always understanding all, with them we fall to our knees and we adore the Child; in him we recognize the Shepherd of shepherds, the Prince of peace, with them, we leave to tell, filled with faith, what we see and hear in respect to the Child.

With the magi, coming from the East, guided by a star, always we put ourselves on the road, leave the comfortability of the disbelief and skepticism, and we go to find the Son of the Great King, that was born humble. With them, docile to the voice of conscience and persevering, we follow seeking to find, with profound recognition, we prostrate before Him and we adore Him; and offer to Him as homage, our own life.

and we ask that God free us from remaining indifferent and unbelieving before the Sublime Mystery as so many remains in this time! And they close themselves from the novelty of the surprise of God and from being seized by the gift of the love of God sent from Heaven to humanity!

Today, “Bethelehem is here, here is Christmas”. God is continually the “God who comes” to our encounter of surprising ways! Before him, we have just taken the same attitude of the people of the first Christmas. It is up to us to welcome our shur the doors…

If we have faith, we should do as the shepherds of Bethlehem, that remained fascinated with that they saw and hears and went out to tell others. We are the witnesses of God in the city!

I hope that you have a holy Christmas! A Merry Christmas is Christmas with faith. So we will be able to rejoice truly and feel the peace that the Child Jesus brings to us.

Published in O SÃO PAULO, (Newspaper of  the Archdiocese of SÃO PAULO, Brasil) ed. de 19.12.2012

Cardinal Odilo Pedro Scherer

Archbishop de São Paulo

@DomOdiloScherer

translated from Portuguese published also at Canção Nova News. (Canção Nova publishes this blog)

not an official translation