Christmas Eve Mass: The Incarnate God Chooses Littleness

Delphine Allaire – Vatican City

The Pope made a clear distinction between the historical context of Christ's birth and the census of the whole earth: “When the emperor enumerates the people of the world, God enters into it almost secretly; While those who command seek to rise among the greats of history, the king of history chooses the path of smallness. None of the powerful noticed it, only a few herdsmen were pushed to the fringes of social life.

According to the Holy Father, this minor passage is also verified in Jesus' approach to the census. “He does not allow the census and humbly allows himself to be counted. We do not see an angry God who punishes, but a merciful God incarnate, who weakly enters the world and precedes him with the proclamation: “Peace to men on earth.”“.

Jesus is not a God of action, but a God of incarnation

“This evening, our hearts are in Bethlehem, where the Prince of Peace is still rejected by the failed logic of war, with armed conflict, even today, preventing him from finding a place in the world.», confirmed Peter's successor, the census of the whole earth, in short, reveals the human threads running through history on the one hand: “A world that seeks power and authority, fame and glory, where everything is measured by achievements and results, statistics and numbers.“. It's an obsession with performance, he says. But at the same time, in the census, the path of Jesus is coming to find us. Avataris out. “He is not a god of acting but a god of incarnation. He does not remove injustices from above by force, but by love from below; It does not emerge with unlimited power, but sinks itself into our limitations; He does not avoid our weaknesses, but considers them.

The Bishop of Rome continued his sermon by questioning the faithful: “Which God do we believe in? Incarnate God or Performance God? Yes, because there is a danger of experiencing Christmas with a pagan idea of ​​God in mind. He is like a powerful lord in the sky, a god associated with power, worldly conquest and consumer idolatry.

Beware of false images of the immediate God

This, according to Francis, is the false image of a lonely and touchy God who is kind to the good and angry with the bad; “A God made in our image who only serves to solve our problems and remove our evils“. Rather, “He doesn't wield a magic wand, he's not an “everything at once” commercial god; He does not save us by pressing a button, but comes closer to changing reality from within», the sovereign papacy upset this worldly idea of ​​a distant and controlling God, a hard and powerful God who helps conquer others as many believe.

And the Pope told us “”The living and true God”, which is beyond all human calculation, yet allows itself to be recorded by our number; Towards a revolutionary who lives in history; To Him who respects us enough to allow us to reject Him. “He wants to embrace our existence. The larger it becomes, the smaller it becomes; He lives in our iniquities», noted Pierre's successor. This, according to him, is the miracle of Christmas: “Not a mixture of sensual affections and worldly pleasures, but the unprecedented tenderness of God who incarnates and saves the world. Let us see the child, let us see his manger, the manger which the angels call “the sign.”“.

God sees the face and the heart, not the act

The Pope then meditated on the Word becoming flesh. A word that reminds us of the frailty of the human condition permeated by God's love for us.

“To the God who changed history in the census, you are not a number, but a face; Your name is written on his heart“, Francis underlined, speaking to everyone's hearts: “Your heart, your performances that aren't up to par, a judgmental and unforgiving world, maybe you're having a bad time this Christmas, thinking you're not good enough, feeling inadequate and dissatisfied. Your weaknesses, your downfalls and your problems.”

Now, having become flesh, he does not expect your performance, but your open and trusting heart, remembering that Christ does not look at numbers, but at faces. Instead, he asks, “Who sees Him in the midst of the innumerable things and the madness of the ever-busy and indifferent world?”

Rediscover worship

One answer lies in the worship of Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, and then the wise men. “Worship is the way to welcome the Incarnation.” “Let's rediscover worship, because worship is not about wasting our time, but about letting God live our time. It causes the seed of incarnation to blossom in us, like leavened dough to cooperate with God's work of transforming the world. It's interceding, making amends, letting God set history straight.” The Pope concluded by quoting the great Christian writer Tolkien: “I offer you the only great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament. There you will find the charm, pride, honor, reliability and true path of your love on earth.» (JRR Tolkien, Letter No. 43, March 1941).