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Pope Benedict XVI- Angelus |
"God Made Himself Small So That We Could Understand Him"
Papal Homily at Midnight Mass
H.H. Benedict XVI
December 25, 2006
www.zenit.org
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
We have just heard in the Gospel the message given by the angels to
the shepherds during that Holy Night, a message which the Church now
proclaims to us: "To you is born this day in the city of David a
Saviour, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you:
you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a
manger" (Lk 2:11-12). Nothing miraculous, nothing extraordinary,
nothing magnificent is given to the shepherds as a sign. All they
will see is a child wrapped in swaddling clothes, one who, like all
children, needs a mother's care; a child born in a stable, who
therefore lies not in a cradle but in a manger. God's sign is the
baby in need of help and in poverty. Only in their hearts will the
shepherds be able to see that this baby fulfils the promise of the
prophet Isaiah, which we heard in the first reading: "For to us a
child is born, to us a son is given; and the government will be upon
his shoulder" (Is 9:5). Exactly the same sign has been given to us.
We too are invited by the angel of God, through the message of the
Gospel, to set out in our hearts to see the child lying in the
manger.
God's sign is simplicity. God's sign is the baby. God's sign is that
he makes himself small for us. This is how he reigns. He does not
come with power and outward splendour. He comes as a baby --
defenceless and in need of our help. He does not want to overwhelm
us with his strength. He takes away our fear of his greatness. He
asks for our love: so he makes himself a child. He wants nothing
other from us than our love, through which we spontaneously learn to
enter into his feelings, his thoughts and his will -- we learn to
live with him and to practise with him that humility of renunciation
that belongs to the very essence of love. God made himself small so
that we could understand him, welcome him, and love him. The Fathers
of the Church, in their Greek translation of the Old Testament,
found a passage from the prophet Isaiah that Paul also quotes in
order to show how God's new ways had already been foretold in the
Old Testament. There we read: "God made his Word short, he
abbreviated it" (Is 10:23; Rom 9:28). The Fathers interpreted this
in two ways. The Son himself is the Word, the Logos; the eternal
Word became small -- small enough to fit into a manger. He became a
child, so that the Word could be grasped by us. In this way God
teaches us to love the little ones. In this way he teaches us to
love the weak. In this way he teaches us respect for children. The
child of Bethlehem directs our gaze towards all children who suffer
and are abused in the world, the born and the unborn. Towards
children who are placed as soldiers in a violent world; towards
children who have to beg; towards children who suffer deprivation
and hunger; towards children who are unloved. In all of these it is
the Child of Bethlehem who is crying out to us; it is the God who
has become small who appeals to us. Let us pray this night that the
brightness of God's love may enfold all these children. Let us ask
God to help us do our part so that the dignity of children may be
respected. May they all experience the light of love, which mankind
needs so much more than the material necessities of life.
And so we come to the second meaning that the Fathers saw in the
phrase: "God made his Word short". The Word which God speaks to us
in Sacred Scripture had become long in the course of the centuries.
It became long and complex, not just for the simple and unlettered,
but even more so for those versed in Sacred Scripture, for the
experts who evidently became entangled in details and in particular
problems, almost to the extent of losing an overall perspective.
Jesus "abbreviated" the Word -- he showed us once more its deeper
simplicity and unity. Everything taught by the Law and the Prophets
is summed up -- he says -- in the command: "You shall love the Lord
your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all
your mind… You shall love your neighbour as yourself" (Mt 22:37-40).
This is everything -- the whole faith is contained in this one act
of love which embraces God and humanity. Yet now further questions
arise: how are we to love God with all our mind, when our intellect
can barely reach him? How are we to love him with all our heart and
soul, when our heart can only catch a glimpse of him from afar, when
there are so many contradictions in the world that would hide his
face from us? This is where the two ways in which God has
"abbreviated" his Word come together. He is no longer distant. He is
no longer unknown. He is no longer beyond the reach of our heart. He
has become a child for us, and in so doing he has dispelled all
doubt. He has become our neighbour, restoring in this way the image
of man, whom we often find so hard to love. For us, God has become a
gift. He has given himself. He has entered time for us. He who is
the Eternal One, above time, he has assumed our time and raised it
to himself on high. Christmas has become the Feast of gifts in
imitation of God who has given himself to us. Let us allow our
heart, our soul and our mind to be touched by this fact! Among the
many gifts that we buy and receive, let us not forget the true gift:
to give each other something of ourselves, to give each other
something of our time, to open our time to God. In this way anxiety
disappears, joy is born, and the feast is created. During the
festive meals of these days let us remember the Lord's words: "When
you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite those who will invite
you in return, but invite those whom no one invites and who are not
able to invite you" (cf. Lk 14:12-14). This also means: when you
give gifts for Christmas, do not give only to those who will give to
you in return, but give to those who receive from no one and who
cannot give you anything back. This is what God has done: he invites
us to his wedding feast, something which we cannot reciprocate, but
can only receive with joy. Let us imitate him! Let us love God and,
starting from him, let us also love man, so that, starting from man,
we can then rediscover God in a new way!
And so, finally, we find yet a third meaning in the saying that the
Word became "brief" and "small". The shepherds were told that they
would find the child in a manger for animals, who were the rightful
occupants of the stable. Reading Isaiah (1:3), the Fathers concluded
that beside the manger of Bethlehem there stood an ox and an ass. At
the same time they interpreted the text as symbolizing the Jews and
the pagans -- and thus all humanity -- who each in their own way
have need of a Saviour: the God who became a child. Man, in order to
live, needs bread, the fruit of the earth and of his labour. But he
does not live by bread alone. He needs nourishment for his soul: he
needs meaning that can fill his life. Thus, for the Fathers, the
manger of the animals became the symbol of the altar, on which lies
the Bread which is Christ himself: the true food for our hearts.
Once again we see how he became small: in the humble appearance of
the host, in a small piece of bread, he gives us himself.
All this is conveyed by the sign that was given to the shepherds and
is given also to us: the child born for us, the child in whom God
became small for us. Let us ask the Lord to grant us the grace of
looking upon the crib this night with the simplicity of the
shepherds, so as to receive the joy with which they returned home
(cf. Lk 2:20). Let us ask him to give us the humility and the faith
with which Saint Joseph looked upon the child that Mary had
conceived by the Holy Spirit. Let us ask the Lord to let us look
upon him with that same love with which Mary saw him. And let us
pray that in this way the light that the shepherds saw will shine
upon us too, and that what the angels sang that night will be
accomplished throughout the world: "Glory to God in the highest, and
on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased." Amen!
[Translation of the Italian original distributed by the Holy See]
© Copyright 2006 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana
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