Adoration of the Shepherds, Lorenzo Lotto, Pinacoteca Tosio Martinengo Brescia.
by Carlo José Seno
Christmas seen by an angel who has arrived in Bethlehem. He announces a small event that is a great event. He responds to the disbelief and pessimism of then and now. The reflection of Father Carlo José Seno, head of the “Vinea Mea” Spirituality Centre for Priests in Loppiano, helps us to grasp, from a unique perspective, the significance of a humble birth that saves the world.
‘I bring you good tidings of great joy: a child has been born for you!’ It is an angel who speaks. And we all agree with him. Every child who comes into the world is a miracle, a unique microcosm of prodigious abilities, carrying within itself a spark of infinity that can never be extinguished. And this enchantment remains intact with every birth of a human baby, even though children are born on earth every second. We are always fascinated by the miracle of life, and this is always good for our hearts, at any age. It confronts us with a mystery that surpasses us in every way.
Not to mention the indescribable joy of those who become fathers or mothers, especially for the first time, and the amount of love they discover they are capable of feeling for such a small creature.
But this certainly does not silence those who prefer to see the glass half empty. I hear them muttering that “every six seconds, a child under the age of five dies in the world”. And we know that the suffering of children is a mystery to which even Pope Francis could find no answer. The mystery therefore deepens.
But in the face of these objections, the angel repeats: “This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger”. And the grumbling then becomes impatient, turning into a cry: ‘But in an age like ours, with wars on our doorstep, peoples crushed by dictatorships, sudden attacks on every continent, increasingly devastating natural disasters, femicides and violence against children, what is a child being born? A tiny speck of life in the face of an immense mountain of death. What can it do to heal such a sick world?’
The angel is not intimidated at all. On the contrary, he has an idea! He goes to gather all the angels of Heaven and together they begin to sing at the top of their voices with one voice: ‘Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those whom he loves!’ And that song does not fade away, it continues to echo, filling the world and history.
Because that child born at Christmas has within him an invincible life, in the face of every death he always manages to invent a new resurrection. He has a love that is infinitely greater than all the wickedness in the world. He is even ready to die for love. And he does so.
The strategy of those in Heaven always remains the same: to save the world, you start with a child. A child who is only love. A child God. He is the only one who knows how to save. And he does so by being born and reborn tirelessly, wherever there is a heart that loves. You see him shining even where you least expect it, near and far, especially in the peripheries of the world, where no one looks, in so many places you don’t see, and every time he invents something new, with a generosity you cannot imagine, with a creativity that surprises you.
There are no other ways. Magic wands that effortlessly transform the world in an instant only exist in fairy tales. That Child, on the other hand, makes love swarm everywhere, he wants it to become an invasion. And he transforms people from within, making them capable of loving as He loves, offering everyone, at every moment, a new possibility. This is the only starting point for the solution to every problem. The angels will never stop repeating this to us.