Pope Francis has a way with words. I share with you words that caught my eye.
Midnight Mass homily
That is where God is, in littleness. This is the message: God does not rise up in grandeur, but lowers himself into littleness. Littleness is the path that he chose to draw near to us, to touch our hearts, to save us and to bring us back to what really matters.
Let us be amazed by this scandalous truth.
The One who embraces the universe needs to be held in another’s arms.
The One who created the sun needs to be warmed
Tenderness incarnate needs to be coddled.
Infinite love has a miniscule heart that beats softly.
The eternal Word is an “infant”, a speechless child.
The Bread of life needs to be nourished. The Creator of the world has no home.
Today, all is turned upside down: God comes into the world in littleness. His grandeur appears in littleness.
Let us ask ourselves: can we accept God’s way of doing things?
This is the challenge of Christmas: God reveals himself, but men and women fail to understand. He makes himself little in the eyes of the world, while we continue to seek grandeur in the eyes of the world, perhaps even in his name.
God lowers himself and we try to become great.
The Most High goes in search of shepherds, the unseen in our midst, and we look for visibility; we want to be seen.
Jesus is born in order to serve, and we spend a lifetime pursuing success. God does not seek power and might; he asks for tender love and interior littleness.
This is what we should ask Jesus for at Christmas: the grace of littleness.
“Lord, teach us to love littleness. Help us to understand that littleness is the way to authentic greatness”.
What does it mean, concretely, to accept littleness? In the first place, it is to believe that God desires to come into the little things of our life; he wants to inhabit our daily lives, the things we do each day at home, in our families, at school and in the workplace.
Jesus asks us to rediscover and value the little things in life. If he is present there, what else do we need? Let us stop pining for a grandeur that is not ours to have. Let us put aside our complaints and our gloomy faces, and the greed that never satisfies! Littleness and the amazement of that little child: this is the message.
To accept littleness means something else too. It means embracing Jesus in the little ones of today. Loving him, that is, in the least of our brothers and sisters. Serving him in the poor, those most like Jesus who was born in poverty. It is in them that he wants to be honoured.
On this night of love, may we have only one fear: that of offending God’s love, hurting him by despising the poor with our indifference. Jesus loves them dearly, and one day they will welcome us to heaven.
Message of Christmas Day
The Word became flesh in order to dialogue with us. God does not desire to carry on a monologue, but a dialogue. For God himself, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is dialogue, an eternal and infinite communion of love and life.
By the coming of Jesus, the Person of the Word made flesh, into our world, God showed us the way of encounter and dialogue. Indeed, he made that way incarnate in himself, so that we might know it and follow it, in trust and hope.
Did any of these strike chord?
Click below for an audio version of this Vincentian Mindwalk
Great reflection.
I am reminded how water can seep into the smallest of crevices and usually wreak havoc if those crevices were “water-proofed.” I wonder how much I “water-proof” my innermost thoughts from God trying to work through me to care for the people around me, especially those with varying degrees and types of poverty. I try not to make meaningless resolutions for the coming year. Maybe, I can start with somethings as simple as paying attention to that “small, still voice.”
My fear is how I can go back to a life without Pope Francis or Father John Freund. Both have been such a tremendous influence (and challenge) to my way of thinking and reacting to God’s creation. Bless you both. May you continue to live long, fulfilling lives!
Peace.