The Lord Jesus Considers Us Worthy!
Dear brothers, pace e bene! My cordial greetings to all!
We are nearing the end of the year 2025, a great year over which we have experienced many things. At the end of the year, we typically take time to evaluate: to see whether we have managed to achieve what we promised ourselves, whether we have taken steps towards a stronger intimacy with the Lord, or steps toward being more faithful to personal prayer and to community prayer, or steps toward integrating ourselves more into fraternity and witness our lives to the world, or steps toward being more zealous—as we once said in our commitment to evangelize, to be missionaries in this world that so badly needs our input—for the Lord and for our brothers and sisters, for what we can do, for indicating that there is something greater. Then, on the balance sheet, we might perhaps verify that not everything went according to plan. In fact, we should sometimes be sincere and humble enough to say that although we had oriented ourselves toward something big, many smaller things in our plans did not come to fruition. Indeed, perhaps sometimes we are all in the same boat, all a little unfaithful.
Now, Advent has just begun. It is a new opportunity, a new light that appears in our lives, which never judges negatively how we have been, what we have failed to achieve, but which comes to support and accompany us on our journey. The Lord Jesus returns, he returns among us, he takes on a mortal body to be close to each of us on our journey. No matter how faithful or unfaithful we have been, the Lord Jesus comes and becomes a child in the cave of Bethlehem. When we consider this magnificent mystery of God’s benevolence, many aspects of our lives are switched on. Feelings can be stirred up easily, even irresistibly. A small child crying in a manger touches our hearts all by itself. But is that all there is to it? Is it only feelings; is it only the desire for kindness, only the satisfaction we derive from sensitivity that counts? No, it is not only that. The very fact that the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, becomes man and takes on our mortal flesh makes us reflect on a much more important aspect, which I would like to describe in this way: Jesus takes on our body, a body that is not only obviously flesh, but is everything we are, everything we live with our contradictions, our faithfulness, our infidelities. Jesus who becomes flesh, becomes man, takes our body. This means that our body, that is, we ourselves, have such great value before God that the Son of God himself does not renounce taking on our fragile humanity. If we reflect a bit, this means that God considers each one of us, what we are, our bodies, to be of great dignity, great dignity. This allows us to look at the world, to look above all at other men and women, at other people, regarding them with the dignity God himself has clothed them through the incarnation of his Son. And so, we can turn our gaze to paths of communion, to consideration of others, whoever they may be, with their own humanity. We can begin at Christmas by saying, “Well, I can consider others better than I have considered them until now.” But something important also happens within each of us. If, despite all the frailties that my body declares, shows me, expresses to me … despite all this, I can believe that the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, considers me, each one of us, to be most worthy. It is not for nothing that in creation the Lord says: let us make man in our image. May the Lord Jesus, this coming Christmas, strengthen the awareness that each of us has of ourselves; may he strengthen the awareness of how much each person before us is worth, may he reconcile our hearts because we are all children of God. May it cause us to be happy with ourselves, to be able to perceive with a greater countenance, which is the face of God, at who we are, what we do, the few results we achieve: everything, everything, brothers and sisters! The Lord gives each of us great dignity: may it be the dignity that Christmas brings to your thoughts, to your hearts, to your souls, may it be the dignity that is the driving force that enables us, with confidence, to resume the journey of response even where we are not always perfect. Brothers and sisters, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Br. Roberto Genuin
General Minister OFMCap