Dear friends,
As the evangelist Luke recounts, Mary and Joseph had to go to Bethlehem for the census. Since there was no room for them in some hostel, they had to adapt; and they found refuge in a cave, one of those that shepherds also used. In this way they have a little privacy and Mary can give birth to the infant Jesus, who, wrapped in swaddling clothes, is placed in the manger (cf. Lk 2). It almost seems like a prophecy of the fact that that child who has grown up will become our food, but also of the fact that that child when has grown up will be again and hastily wrapped in swaddling clothes and then in a sheet and placed in a very different cave, that of the tomb.
Although the story of Christmas and the representation we make of it in the crib inspire us with sweetness and a sense of poetry, when Jesus was born the reality was very difficult. Rome dominated the entire Mediterranean world by force. In Judea, a small satellite of the great empire, Herod reigned. A king so attached to power that he even eliminated his own children in order not to have rivals. A king who is afraid of a newborn child, because he is indicated by prophecies as a possible king and messiah. A king who therefore goes so far as to carry out a preventive massacre, having all the children in the Bethlehem area aged two and under killed (Mt 2:16), to avoid the risk that one of them, having grown up, will take away his power and kingdom.
This Christmas, still darkened by the darkness of hatred and war, still infected by the virus of human indifference, still reddened by the blood of too many innocent people killed, let us kneel before the manger in which Mary laid the infant Jesus, and accept the invitation addressed by Pope Francis to the whole world on the occasion of last Christmas: “To say ‘yes’ to the Prince of Peace means to say ‘no’ to war, and this with courage: to say ‘no’ to war, to every war, to the very logic of war, a journey without a destination, a defeat without winners, madness without excuses (…) From the crib, the Child asks us to be the voice of the voiceless: the voice of the innocents.” (Urbi et Orbi Message, 25/12/2023).
Let’s not forget this when we shake hands and exchange greetings with each other.
Merry Christmas from Bethlehem
Fra Francesco Patton
Custos of the Holy Land
