Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Luke (2, 1-14)

Now it came about in those days what an order went out from Ceasar that there was to be a numbering of all the world .This was the first numbering which has made when Quirinius was ruler of Syria. And all men went to be numbered everyone to his town. Joseph went up out of the town of Nazareth into Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David ; because it was the house and the family of David. To be put on the list with Marie,his future wife  who was about to become a mother. (2, 1-5)

And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth . And she had her first son; and folding him in linen she put him in a place where the cattle had their food because there was no room for them in the common room for them in the house. (2, 6-7)

In the same country there were keepers of sheeps in the fields watching over their flock by night .And an angel of the Lord came to them and the glory of the Lord was shining round about them and fear came on them .And the angel said "Have no fear «  for truly I give you good news of great joy which will be for all the people. For on this day in the town of David, a Savior has come to birth who is Christ, the Lord. And this is the sign  to you: you will see a young child folded in linen in the place where the cattle have their food. (2, 8-12)

And suddenly there was with the angel a great band of spirit from Heaven giving praised to God an saying  "Glory to God in the highest on the earth peace among men will whom he is well pleased". (2, 13-14)

Joseph's joy

After the long march of Advent, where we prayed and meditated with St. Joseph, here is the time for us to celebrate with Christmas the coming of our Savior. Christmas, feast of hope, joy and peace; Christmas, the feast of the childhood of the Son of God; Christmas, feast of all the poor who have no other party.

There was a time when we were on one level with the joy of Christmas, because we were still close to our own childhood; but as our childhood moves far away, the way also seems longer to us to join the joy that brings Christmas to us. And this because, the world is hard and humanity suffer, because the heart of man remains inhabited by selfishness, or will to power . We have moved away from Christmas, and it would be futile to try to win him back by the force of his wrist, or to plunge ourselves back into the dream, or by closing our eyes to the real world ;  the joy of Christmas is not a conquest of the man,or the Christians, or the «consecrated» ; it is a gift of The Lord, today as in the first day. It is not a question of merging Christmas, at any price, but, well, at Christmas, to let us join by God, to finally accept that God comes to meet us and that he accomplishes his wonders in the ordinary of our lives as men or women.

This is what happened one night in Bethlehem. A simple woman has made for her child the simple gestures that all mothers have made since there are mothers: feeding, wrapping, cradling, cuddling; but the child was the own Son of God. Every child escapes from his mother -as soon as- he opens his eyes to the light of the world; and therefore mothers so often remain pensive by looking at their child. Marie knew that the mystery of her child would always escape from her, and yet she knew how to pose for him, day after day, the ordinary gestures of life. Bravely, quietly , she has entered into the design and the choice of God that is to make wealth with poverty, the eternal with the daily, the universal with the limited, the redemption with the ordinary, of the divine in humanity.

The shepherds, too, have been joined by God in their daily lives, in the cold of the night near the sheep pens; and the wonders that God has done for them on this Christmas are still marvels that can speak to the poors : God makes them feel His presence and His proximity by surrounding them in His light, then He explains to them everything, of course everything that is explicable, by the voice of his envoy : "a Savior is born  today in the city of David, he is the Lord Messiah. And here is the sign given to you : you will find the newborn swaddled and lying in a manger". Fragility, dependence, nakedness : these are the landmarks given to the shepherds to recognize the Messiah of God. These are already the marks of their own existence: the Messiah they are going to see,  is already one of theirs.

Brothers and sisters, the Messiah that we are singing tonight is truly one of us; he wanted to inaugurate his reign as a little child, and we will only enter it with.

Brothers and sisters, the Messiah we are singing tonight is truly one of us; he wished to inaugurate his reign as a little child, and we will enter it only with a child's heart. Christ wanted to come to us through childhood, to challenge as gently as possible the old age that make us stale intellectually. He refused to entering into force into the world because he wanted to reveal the way of God. He lived as «Son of God» our ordinary days of men and women. Do not look for him far, do not seek him in our past, beyond the mists of failure, nor in our childhood too soon disappeared. Do not look elsewhere than in the ordinary: He is here and now, for us; He is born, He is in the world, God with us, Emmanuel !

Jean Lévêque,

ocd, Province of Paris

Nice Christmas party to all !

The Carmel Online Retreat Team:

Brother Jean Lévêque, Brother Jean-Alexandre, the Carmelite Sisters of Laval, Dominique, Brigitte and Marie-Noëlle