1 January 1984
Paris, France

Mother Rogé, Father Lloret and my dear Sisters,

On this New Year's Day, let me speak to you about gifts--for Christmas and the New Year is the season of gifts--of gifts given and of gifts received. It is so, of course, because of the great exchange of gifts that took place when the Word of God took flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary; when, as we recall at every Eucharistic celebration God became a partaker of our human nature, so that we might become sharers in His Divinity.

Gifts. Think about some of the best gifts you have received at Christmas time over the years. You will find that, like so much else in life, there is an art in giving gifts. In the recipe for the giving of good gifts, you will find quite a number of ingredients that do not always appear at first sight. First of all, to give a good gift you must first give much thought to it. The reason why thought is the most important ingredient in a recipe for a good gift is because you wish your gift to meet a need in the person to whom you offer it.

A second element in the giving of gifts is surprise. Gifts are carefully wrapped at Christmastime in fancy paper, and is it not one of the joys of life to spend some moments of guessing before opening a gift, wondering what it might be? Surprise is always an excellent condiment for any gift, given or received.

It goes without saying that the exchange of gifts between friends is an expression of the love that unites them. As love is spiritual, our gifts are but tokens of what we want to say or express in our giving of them.

Only one gift in the world has been an adequate expression of the love that lay behind it. "God so loved the world as to give His only-begotten Son." (Jn 3:16). Who can measure the thought that lies behind the Incarnation? "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God...and the Word was made flesh." (Jn 1:1,14). For centuries God's chosen people played guessing games, so to speak, about the Messiah and His coming. In their wildest dreams they did not guess that God's gift to them would be His Son. If surprise is an element in the giving of a gift, has the world ever been given a greater surprise than that the God who swung the stars into motion should be found as a new-born Infant lying in the manger?

The shepherds were surprised by the multitude of angels who broke the silence of the night as they sang: "Glory to God in the highest and peace to those who are God's friends." (Lk 2:14). The wise men from the East were surprised by a star that led them to Bethlehem.

What of the wrapping of the gift? It was Mary, the Virgin Mother, who according to St. Luke "wrapped the child in swaddling clothes and laid Him in a manger." (Lk 2:7).

In preparing for the feast of Christmas, the Church in one of her Eucharistic prefaces makes us pray for the gift of "wonder and praise."

I can think of few more useful graces for any of us at the beginning of this New Year than that of wonder and praise for the gift of the Incarnation and its prolongation in the Eucharist, in the Church and in the poor. Each day of this New Year will bring to us a new gift of God's grace. It is because we have lost to some degree the capacity to wonder like children, that we cease to be surprised at what God is working in us and through us. What a gift and what a surprise is our daily Holy Communion, not to mention the thought that God has put into it so that it would meet the needs of our hearts and our lives. Like Martha, however, we are so busy and anxious about other less important experiences in our lives that we fail to wonder and praise Our Lord for that gift which makes every day a Christmas Day for us. Each morning we begin our prayer with: "O Lord open our lips." We would do well to ask Him also to open our eyes, as He opened Mary's eyes to see "the great things" that He is doing for us day by day. "And of His fullness we have all received...grace upon grace." (Jn 1:16).

Your vocation is, as St. Vincent so often reminded the first Sisters, a gift of God. Not only that, you yourselves are God's gift to the poor. Reflect often on the manner of God's giving in the Incarnation. Could anything be more simple and self-effacing than the appearance of an infant in a manger? Be simple and self-effacing in the manner in which you offer yourselves to the poor. Do not force yourselves on the poor. The Infant Jesus did not force himself on the shepherds nor on the wise men from the East nor indeed on humanity today. Allow yourselves be led to the poor through the Community as Mary allowed herself to be led by others toward Bethlehem. Do not be disheartened if your own plans for serving the poor are not realized as you would like them to be. Mary's and Joseph's original idea was that the child should be born in the inn. But then there was no room there, and he was born in a stable which became a sign for the shepherds.

All that I have been saying has been expressed marvelously by St. Louise in a letter which she wrote a few days after Christmas 1659: "You will learn from Jesus, my dear Sisters, to practice solid virtue, as He did in His holy humanity, as soon as He came down upon earth. It is from the example of Jesus in His infancy that you will obtain all that you need to become true Christians and perfect Daughters of Charity." (Spiritual Writings of Louise de Marillac, ltr. 647, p. 666).