We are happy to share with you an excerpt from our Chaplain's homily on this Christmas Day!
...When God comes to visit this earth, he does not do it with the power of an army or by terrifying the world as men think; it does not bring with it war and desolation. He does not have the economic or political strength of a world leader. God comes to visit us, and behold: he is a poor and exiled new-born. He has no way of defending himself: He doesn't even know how to speak. In everything, it depends on us. He entrusts himself totally to humanity and meets us to the extent of the welcome we reserve for him. In this, the Christian message is unique, absolutely original, confusing and even scandalous. God like a new-born in a poor human family.
For the first time in the entire history of humanity, God comes to dwell among men. This discovery of a fragile God disconcerts and amazes us. We are free or not to love it, or to reject it. We are free to believe that God was made a little child, or not to believe it. The God of Jesus Christ proposes himself: He does not impose himself.
No religion has had this incredible audacity to announce that God becomes a little child, a fragile and defenceless new-born, poor and exiled. We Christians did not imagine it either: we received it from the gospels and this astonishing revelation configures our faith...
The Christian faith is an encounter, it is a welcome, it is a proposition of love offered to our freedom. It is the welcoming into our lives of this child who comes to us from God. God comes to meet us like a child: And we Christians, we simply strive to welcome him, to make a place for him in our hearts, in our thoughts, in our lives, in our activities, our projects and our relationships. This is what the Christian faith is: welcoming a child with tenderness, and letting him grow in us, letting him remain in us. The one who freely accepts this encounter observes amazed how it gradually becomes stronger; the most beautiful, the most important, the most peaceful of his life. A friendship is formed, which keeps him alive and a new hope grows in him, which nothing can destroy, because it is the hope of the world...
May the celebration of the birth of the Prince of Peace be for all of us
a door of a new hope to lasting and deep peace
for this country which saw Him born
and for our world that He loved so much
We wish you : Merry Christmas and holy celebrations
