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This year the Good night has been fueled by controversy over the need to anticipate the mass from the birth of Jesus to comply with the anti-contagion rules imposed by the Italian government and beyond. Norms to which Pope Francis has also adhered. But “we know that Jesus was not born on December 25”. The cardinal remembers this Angelo comastri, Vicar General of the Pope for Vatican City, Archpriest of the Papal Basilica of Saint Peter and President of the Fabbrica di San Pietro.
In his latest book entitled You come down from the stars … and it’s Christmas (Saint Paul), the cardinal writes that “the evangelists have not transmitted to us the exact date of the birth of Jesus. They were not concerned with fixing the news of many historical details, but announcing the ‘fact’ and living it and making it live. Because then the December 25th to remember the birth of Jesus? ”.
Cardinal Comastri responds by recalling that “in ancient times, in the month of December, pagan peoples celebrated the feast of the ‘Rising Sun’. In fact, towards the end of this month, the days begin to stretch and the light slowly conquers the darkness, the sun begins to triumph over the darkness of the night. The ancient Christians said: “We will not celebrate the feast of the sun god. For us, the sun is Christ and his birth is the beginning of the true triumph of light over darkness ”. That is why, with a courageous and significant decision, December 25 became for Christians the feast of the birth of Jesus, the feast of light that conquers darkness, the feast of the true Sun! ”.
The cardinal, however, goes further and asks: “After two thousand years of Christendom what is the situation in the world? Every minute more than a million euros are spent on weapons and every minute 70 people die of hunger; Every year there are frightful expenditures for the most mundane amusements and each year nearly forty million people die of malnutrition. In the world injustices are rampant, violence multiplies; and children, children themselves! – suffer the worst, the most common diseases “.
Comastri also recalls that “a very serious journalist recently spread this shocking news: higher to the monetary loop of the arms trade! As I write these things, I am ashamed to belong to this humanity.
From this daunting setting the invitation of Bergoglio, also because of the “difficulties” due to the “restrictions and inconveniences” of the pandemic, “to refine a bit the way of living Christmas, celebrating, leaving consumerism: make it more religious, more authentic, more true.” Because, as the Pope recalled, “the consumerism he kidnapped us at Christmas. Consumerism is not in the manger of Bethlehem: there is reality, poverty, love ”.
De Bergoglio also an invitation to rediscover the cribs that, as Saint Francis of Assisi demonstrated in 1223, “they are a great catechesis of our faith.” The Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, chaired by Monsignor Rino Fisichella, this year once again organized the exhibition “100 cribs” under the colonnade of St. Peter’s Square. An event accompanied by an agile little book entitled It was born for us! Christmas with Pope Francis (Libreria Editrice Vaticana) that collects some of Bergoglio’s reflections on the birth of Jesus.
“The tradition of mounting the crib – writes Monsignor Fisichella in the preface, he carries with him a charge of spirituality that allows us to grasp the allure of the mystery that has changed history. God becomes man to show the way of true love. There was a time when the creator of the universe was a baby wrapped in a diaper and placed on a straw. The image in its essentiality indicates the way of how God loves ”.
For the prelate “what Christmas expresses is not a beautiful story, but the heart of the Christian faith. The tenderness printed on the face of a child is a sign of hope that opens up unknown but real horizons. Stopping these days to contemplate in silence the mystery that floods life is not a waste of time, but a return to the essential ”.
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