Merry Christmas!
Dear Alumna, dear Alumnus,
Christmas is for us Christians, but also for other people, an occasion of great rejoicing and deep hope.
We have a joyful heart to see the child in the manger in Bethlehem. And for us adults, we recall memories of our own childhood, when we watched in wonder the figures in the manger of the nativity and those who approached it. We sang and we still sing that a saviour was born. However, it was obviously not the little child Jesus, in his fragility, who could at that first moment hope to save the world.
We do not always realize that a child is a promise of life and that his life must unfold fully for the promise of his birth to be fulfilled. Jesus was the saviour, because after being the divine child of the manger, he then lived his life as a man in a radical way, in his case up to the point of sacrifice.
The birth of Jesus, therefore, should make us remember that, beyond its miraculous and enchanting aspect, it is a call to live our lives as men and women in a certain radical way, so that we too may be faithful to the promise of our birth.
I wish you a Merry Christmas and already a Happy New Year 2020.
