This Wednesday, February 12, during the General Hearing in the Paul VI Classroom, Pope Francis addressed in catechesis the event of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem. As happened last week, the bronchitis he suffers prevented him from reading the text he had prepared and asked a collaborator to do it for him.
Then the full text of catechesis.
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Dear brothers and sisters!
In our jubilee path of catechesis about Jesus, our hope, today we stop at the event of his birth in Bethlehem.
The Son of God enters history becoming our traveling companion and begins to travel when he is still in his mother’s belly.
The evangelist Lucas tells us that, barely conceived, he was from Nazareth to the house of Zacarías and Isabel; And then, when the pregnancy was completed, from Nazareth to Bethlehem for the census. María and José were forced to go to the city of King David, where José was also born. The long -awaited Messiah, the Son of the Most High God, is allowed to censor, that is, count and register, like any other citizen. He submits to the decree of an emperor, César Augusto, who believes the master of the whole earth.
Luke places the birth of Jesus in “a time that can be determined precisely” and in “a to a geographical environment indicated exactly”, so that “the universal and the concrete are touched reciprocally” (Benedict XVI, the childhood of Jesus, 2012, 77).
Thus shows us the humility of a God who enters history and does not destabilize the structures of the world, but wants to illuminate them and recreate them from within.
Bethlehem means “home house.” There the days of childbirth were fulfilled for Mary and Jesus was born, bread from the sky to satisfy the hunger of the world (cf. Jn 6,51).
The Angel Gabriel had announced the birth of the messianic king with the sign of greatness: «Behold you will conceive in your bosom and give birth to a son, whom you will name Jesus.
He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David, his father, and will reign on Jacob’s house forever, and his kingdom will have no end ”(Lk 1,32-33).
However, Jesus is born in a totally unprecedented way for a king. In fact, «while they were in that place, the days of childbirth were fulfilled.
He gave birth to his firstborn son, wrapped him in diapers and lay him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the shelter ”(Lk 2,6-7).
The Son of God is not born in a royal palace, but in the back of a house, in the space where animals are.
Luke shows us that God does not come to the world with proclamations, he does not manifest himself with clamor, but his journey begins in humility.
And who are the first witnesses of this event?
They are shepherds: men with little culture, smelly for constant contact with animals, who live outside society.
However, they exercise the trade by which God himself makes his people known (cf. Gn 48.15; 49.24; Ps 23,1; 80,2; Is 40,11).
God chooses them to be the recipients of the most wonderful news that he has ever resonated in history: «They do not fear: because I announce a great joy for the whole people: today, in the city of David, they were born a Savior, What is Christ the Lord.
This will serve as a signal: you will find a newborn child wrapped in diapers, lying in a manger »(Lk 2,10-12).
The place to go to meet the Messiah is a manger. It happens, in effect, that, after so much hope, “for the savior of the world, for that in view of which everything was created (cf. col 1,16), there is no place” (Benedict XVI, the childhood of Jesus, 2012, 80).
The shepherds find out that, in a very humble place, reserved for animals, the Messiah is born so long as their Savior, their pastor.
This news opens their hearts to amazement, to praise and joyful proclamation. “Unlike so many people who intend to do another thousand things, the shepherds become the first witnesses of the essentials, that is, of the salvation offered to them.
They are the most humble and the poorest who know how to host the event of the incarnation »(Ap. Admirabile Signum, 5).
Brothers and sisters, we also ask for the grace of being, like the shepherds, capable of amazement and praise before God, and capable of guarding what he has entrusted to us: our talents, our charisms, our vocation and the people he puts to our side.
Let us ask the Lord to discern in weakness the extraordinary force of the child God, who comes to renew the world and transform our lives with his project full of hope for all humanity.
Papa Francisco
Pope Francis, born on December 17, 1936 in Buenos Aires (Argentina), is the first Latin American Pope in the history of the Catholic Church, assuming the papacy on March 13, 2013. His close style and his emphasis on mercy They have left a distinctive brand in their pontificate.