The Stooping of God
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25 December 1989
Rome, Italy

My dear Sisters,

Some years ago when I was visiting our communities in the Province of the Middle East, I went to Israel for some days. I made the journey from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, where our Sisters had a small hospital. With some of our Fathers and Sisters we went around to the church which marks the spot where tradition says Jesus Christ was born. One of the features of this church is that the door of entry into it is very low. One has to stoop to enter the church. If I remember rightly, I was told that the door was made very low centuries ago to prevent men from riding on their horses right into the church.

When you think of the mystery of Christmas and of the Incarnation, it is the feast of the stooping of God. Think of this great universe of ours. Our planet, the earth, is but a tiny speck among the stars and planets of the universe. The God Who made them all chose to be born as a helpless infant from the womb of a young Jewish girl. That was the beginning of the stooping of God, which would continue until the day He stooped to be nailed to a cross and to die.

When God stooped and was born in Bethlehem, He did so gently. Everything in Bethlehem suggests gentleness. Mary and Joseph accepted gently the refusals that they received at the inn, and went off to seek a cave in which Mary could bring forth the Blessed Fruit of her womb, Jesus. The shepherds listened to the song and message of the angels, and then gently made their way to Bethlehem to find the Child and His Mother. The Magi gently received the answer of the jealous Herod and continued their journey from Jerusalem to Bethlehem until they found the newborn King with His Mother. There would be so much more peace in our lives, if we knew how to be truly gentle--gentle and patient with ourselves, gentle and patient with others. When the Infant of Bethlehem had grown up, He asked His followers to learn from Him to be gentle and humble of heart. (cf. Mt 11:29).

The mystery of the birth of Jesus is supremely a mystery of love. The purpose of the coming of Christ was to speak to us humans about the love which the great, eternal and all-powerful God has for us short-lived, weak, fragile and sinful human beings. Think of any newborn infant. Would you be afraid of it? An infant is the least frightening of all humans. The language of a newborn infant is one that invites us to draw close and to help. A newborn infant calls forth from our hearts love. A newborn infant is helpless. Its language is that of humility. A newborn infant is uncomplicated. The cries of an infant are simple. Its needs, too, are simple and elemental. The language of an infant is simplicity.

My dear Sisters, the language of God at Christmas is one of love, of humility and of simplicity. Your vocation is to continue learning that language, not only at Christmas but throughout your lives. It is the language that you must learn to speak if you wish to draw near to the poor. For your vocation as Daughters of Charity is to stoop to serve the poor in simplicity, humility and charity.

The feast of Christmas is the feast of the stooping of God. To enter into the feast we, too, must learn to stoop. If we want to penetrate into the mystery of the Incarnation, we must learn to stoop in humility before God and before humans, and to stoop before humans is much more difficult than to stoop before God. It is at Christmas that we wish each other peace. If we wish to experience peace in our personal lives, then we must learn to stoop in humility. "In humility," writes St. Paul, "count others better than yourselves." (Phil 2:3). It is St. Vincent who assures us that the person who has humility will enjoy peace, but the person who has it not will be subject to continual anxieties. (CR II, 7).

All that I have been saying has been expressed marvelously by St. Louise in a letter which she wrote a few days after Christmas in 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).

For all of us here I make my own the prayer of Cardinal Newman: "May each Christmas as it comes, find us more and more like Him, Who at this time became a little child for our sake, more humble, more holy, more happy, more full of God."

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