CHRISTMAS GREETINGS 2010
This year I want to wish you located near the crib.
.. I confess .. I would stay there for a long time, today is one of the few places that makes me feel at ease, is one of the few places that gives me such peace to the heart .. but it is also a scenario that puts a lot of anger inside me because after more than 2000 years man has not yet realized that "this child is for us."
Yes, it is true, is the fact that the years pass, will be that, through the days, years, more and more people I meet who often "do not make it any more," that I bring into the craving not so much to say but wish to tell everyone: "Stop here with me, says ... carefully and then decide to make up your mind !!!"... Christmas ... I decide to change the logic of your life.
... When you are near them to the crib and you mentally scroll through the Gospels, the first thing that stands out are the absences ... people who are not there.
Then you realize that there is Herod, who at that baby, that the presence of a God who comes to visit he saw a boy to make out .. and as always happens, without dirtying your hands and feet, "Go, said the Magi .. and just let me know if you find it."
.. and then I wonder: is it possible that after 2000 years the powerful have more fear of the fear that a child .. even deny the Christian roots? "
I wonder: "it is possible that those in power do not yet feel the need to measure its choices, its programs with the one who gives us the truth?
It is possible that the logic of those who have the responsibility Help is still somewhat closed to avoid any confrontation in the palace? "
Today, as then often let us be content to know the censuses and surveys are now called, which often serve only to shoot a reality that must be addressed ... but psychologically perhaps never really.
Dear powers that be, dear public leaders, I wish each of you in these days have time to stop before this child ... and maybe leave your craving balancing tactical and finally, perhaps, would find the true strength not only to speak cuts but these cuts you to understand that poverty does not affect the dignity that poverty does not affect the relationships, the dignity ... maybe even become reality able to make plans where compromises and power plays flirting remain outside the your building, or rather remain in your buildings ... but you will find the strength to get out among the people and the people share the toil, suffering, the desire ... to live.
... Let me also say frankly to my beloved Church ... that the powerful must be met ... but never in their buildings. ... More true that the meetings with them are those that you, or the Church, do you do when you wore the apron of the service and stole your ministry ... that stole so that it becomes more and more concrete sign of reconciliation of the powerful to the poor.
Dear Gentlemen ... we have heard "the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light and that light continues to illuminate every man and all who received him he gave power to become children of God
Yes, the poor now have more light.
A light so strong that it creates a shadow in which the rich can not in any way to orientate, a light that will come to visit the poor “come un sole che nasce dall’alto, per illuminare quelli che stanno nelle tenebre e nell’ombra della morte”, una luce che sa “rovesciare i potenti dai troni e innalzare gli umili”, capace di “ricolmare di beni gli affamati e rimandare i ricchi a mani vuote”.
Dio non è ancora stanco dell’umanità.
Dio crede ancora, anno dopo anno, nella potenza di una Luce che viene in ogni angolo del mondo a ridare speranza a chi non l’ha; che viene ad illuminare i marciapiedi di una strada che invece di ricondurre a casa fa sparire nel nothing that comes to enlighten the minds of those who care about personal privileges rather than the good of a nation that is to shed light on crimes, crimes and injustices still unpunished, and that is to warm the hearts of those who have no mercy even a child, that is to say, the powerful of all the world that no sacrifice is in vain, that is to bring clarity to a church that often groping in the dark not knowing what direction to take, and that is to remind us, all things considered rich although we always complain that sometimes we would do well not only for a walk before the windows filled with light, but in the street corners where still too many people lies in darkness, in spite of all today is Christmas.
I would also say to you that you are content to live Christmas looking at the multitude of lights that appear to play each other and that we are deluding ourselves that we are converting to the tenderness, peace , intimacy, wanting to be better ... you say: "Open your eyes, those lights are temporary lights, programmed by a timer ... those lights are set to go off and your fate will be to return to the everyday life made so many question marks and a few certainties, many made of darkness. Dying, those lights, they will leave in you the desire to light up again in a year when life will have had time to give more punishment.
Already now live within you the bitterness because for every gift you've done you've forgotten at least three, for every hug given the exit of the Mass, there are at least ten others who have avoided give, for each person invited to lunch there are two others that do not invite ever for a slice of cake eaten with taste, there are ten other dishes remained empty.
... Forget all that and stopped before the manger, you will find the taste of life, you will give back the certainty of the shepherds and the wise men wonder you teach your hands to open the gift. "
Dear friends, finally wishes to all of you who are with me today before this child and you are there because you are not by chance but because you decided to make a journey, the journey, which started a request made by John the Baptist: "What shall we do?" and then, feeling weak, we have with us Mary, that every day she invited us to be humble.
Greetings To you I say from my heart.
God bets on each of us, God once again came for each one of us, telling us that despite the many disappointments we have no right to surrender to discouragement, but now we have once again the need to say, not with words but with deeds: "Glory to God and on earth peace to men of good will."
