Peace and joy

We are getting ready to celebrate Christmas. We will be able to meet around the manger: in the new-born lying in a manger, we will recognize God who becomes man. In a fragile little child, the creator of the world. In a baby that does not speak, the One who says "I love you" to every creature, and especially to human beings. How shall we receive him?

We are not the first to welcome him. That is why, in preparing for Christmas, I like to remember all those who were there and how they welcomed Jesus. St. Luke and St. Matthew quote them in the Gospels: Mary, who said yes, available in trust for the unprecedented adventure that God proposes to her; Joseph, caring husband, and amazed witness: with a Father's heart, he watches over the new-born. The angels who announce the birth of the Saviour and sing the glory of God who loves men. The shepherds: they who share the life of their animals are modest people, a little marginal in the population of Israel; their presence with the flock prevents them from participating in the worship of the synagogue or the Temple; yet they will be the first to witness and share "what has been announced to them". Let's not forget the hotelier: he is sometimes given a bad reputation, yet wasn't he the one who considered that the common room was not a suitable place to shelter a woman about to give birth and who directed the couple to a quieter place?

In our nativity scenes, there is often also a donkey and an ox: they come to us from the prophet Isaiah for whom "the ox knows its owner and the donkey the manger at his master's house" (Isaiah 1,3). These animals, models of wisdom, invite us to contemplate the mystery of a confusing God who presents himself to us weak and defenceless: this is the God who made us, man, and woman, in his image!

St. Matthew adds the presence of the Magi, the scholars, the pagans, who will offer the baby Jesus the treasures of their culture and their country. Behind them, we can see the shadow of Herod and of all the aggressors whose victims will be children: we will not forget this dark side of our news.

Why evoke these characters we know well? Because, in front of the manger and with them, we find three words and the three attitudes designated by these three words: love, peace, joy. With the angel announcing great joy, an innumerable heavenly troop praises God saying: "Peace on earth." The Magi, too, experience great joy when they see the star stop above the place where the child was located.

"Joy and peace grow with praise and thanksgiving," Pope Francis once said (Epiphany 2018 homily). Joy: perhaps it is difficult for it to be born in our hearts and to be read on our faces. Yet what a beautiful gift we can give to those around us if we accept this gift of joy that Jesus gives us and if we reflect it! Peace: our world says it wants it, but it is far from making it reign. Let us welcome the peace that Jesus brings us and, without delay, let us be peacemakers where we live, in this small piece of the world that is entrusted to our responsibility. Christmas will bring through you a little joy and peace, in a world that lacks both.

Praise the Lord, give thanks to him for the birth of Jesus and for the face of God that Jesus begins to reveal to us in the manger and that he will reveal even to the cross. With Mary and Joseph, with the shepherds and the Magi, let us live a true feast of the Nativity. May the contemplation of the God-child in a manger nourish in you joy, peace and the taste of praise.

Father + François Maupu, spiritual advisor of LAI