Christmas embrace of Peace

Roma (Italia). In the Message of Christmas Greetings 2024, the Superior General of the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, Mother Chiara Cazzuola, focuses on Peace, a gift that must be guarded, protected, and made to grow

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I would like to open this message with the childhood memory of a person who lived her early years during World War 2. During the war, when Christmas arrived, she happily followed her busy mother who placed on the table the most beautiful dishes, but what excited her was the oil paper that wrapped the silver cutlery. A card of midnight blue with golden stars, which fascinated her very much and kindled her little imagination, her desire. Behold in the blue sky, studded with stars, like the paper of the panettone, the angels would suddenly write the word PEACE, very brightly. Everyone would see it and they would have a great feast.

The dream of this child is beautiful, but peace is a living gift that must be guarded, protected, and made to grow on earth with the help of heaven. Unfortunately, seemingly endless wars continue to claim victims and the chorus of angels announcing peace on earth may seem strident with the realities of belligerence and violence unleashed in various parts of the planet. But precisely because of this darkness, it is important to live with faith the Birth of the Prince of Peace.

When Jesus was born, the Roman empire was ruled by the pax augustea, a peace imposed with weapons, maintained with the threat of destruction, preserved with the use of violence. It is a peace guaranteed by a colossal war machine that does not know how to stop the tyrannies, cruelties, and social injustices. And it is in Bethlehem, the place under the cruel Herod, king of Judea, that Jesus is born, the Prince of Peace, the incomparable Prince of Peace, the beginning and source of Peace. The peace of this child is true and different from the absence of war; its substance is love and justice, reconciliation and redemption.

In Bethlehem, a host of angels sing: “Glory to God in the highest heavens and peace on earth.” It is a diptych in which both expressions say the same thing, even from a different point of view. As Pope Benedict XVI said, “The glory of God is in the highest heaven, but this height of God is now in the cave of Bethlehem. His glory is on earth; it is the glory of humility and love. THE GLORY OF GOD IS PEACE”. We know that this Peace is Jesus and that this peace has a price: His incarnation and His passion.

With the incarnation of the Word, God’s bending over, looking at the heavens and the earth, as the psalmist says, (Ps 112/113) emphasizing that God’s gazing is an action, “He raises the needy from the dust, lifts the poor from the ash heap,“ assumes a realism previously unimaginable.

God bends over. He comes, really He, as a baby, in a cave. A real baby with a Mother, very sweet, full of grace, but a woman who belongs to humanity, to a people: Mary. This Baby puts Himself in the condition of total dependence, typical of every newborn. The Creator, who holds in His hands the life of all creation, becomes small and needs human love.

His sacrifice for us is the Glory that shines in the highest heavens. Nothing, in fact, is more sublime than this Love! The glory of God becomes visible to us if we open our eyes of faith and heart on this Baby laid in a manger. He holds in His hands all the hopes of humanity, the gift of indissoluble fraternity, returning us to the Father as new children in Him – the Son, and the gift of peace.

Art, which goes beyond words, also helps us to reflect on the great gift of peace that comes from Jesus. In particular, the painting by Sandro Botticelli “Mystical Nativity”, the only work signed and dated by the great artist of Florence. It highlights the climate of reconciliation between the human and the divine; it shows that the angels and men who celebrate the birth of Jesus, rejoice together. (…)

This embrace between heaven and earth can also indicate the means by which to overcome the presence of evil: fraternity and, through the example of the angels, prayer.

And to build the peace announced by the angels there is no other way than that inaugurated by Jesus himself. It is the peace that starts from Bethlehem, passes through Calvary, and enters into the glorious light of Easter. May we, Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, our educating communities, the young people entrusted to us, our families be given the joy of humility, love, forgiveness, and fraternal communion; the active desire to proclaim this Child to the world; the will to never detach ourselves from the choir of angels singing praises, to whom we can really join each day in the Eucharistic celebration.

Let us be ever more among those men and women “who please Him”, to whom the Lord, our only salvation, gives the passion to collaborate in the advent of His peace, so that He can finally enter and take up a stable abode in this world.

“Peace is a hug that makes you feel safe,” said one little girl.

May this embrace that starts from Mary, be extended to the angels, to the shepherds, to every believer, gathering all men and women in the joy of the grace given, in the joy of the peace announced.

Merry Christmas of full and certain Hope!

Full text of the Message