The homily of the Apostolic Administrator of the Latin Patriarchate, “Church of the Holy Land, don't be frightened by poverty and insecurity. The road of God is not that of strength”.
*****
In the Holy Land where every stone, every word, every gesture is claimed as great, Christmas returns to reveal a God who chooses to be small. The apostolic administrator of the Latin Patriarchate, Monsignor Pierbattista Pizzaballa, could not choose a stronger contrast this Christmas night 2017 in Bethlehem. A night marked again this year by the traditional ceremonial in the site where Jesus was born, which culminated with the Mass celebration in the church of St. Catherine with the President of the Palestinian National Authority, Abu Mazen, sitting in the front row. In a Bethlehem shaken by the rain and the wind, many people attended the ceremony (however, less than in the past, though until a few weeks ago the Holy Land swarmed with pilgrims).
The overall Christmas atmosphere in Bethlehem is tense, marked by controversy and violence following Donald Trump's statement on Jerusalem. Even the good wishes addressed to Christians by Abu Mazen and Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, were an opportunity for everyone to try to bring water to their own mill, in the usual sad rituality of conflict-times.
But then, in the night that reminds us of the Child, the call to the Gospel of the little ones breaks through. In his homily, Pizzaballa immediately warns against the risk of celebrating "a feast, yet beautiful and cherished, but made silent and insignificant, and almost obvious, given its traditional repetition". Whereas, on the other hand, Christmas is "a prophecy, the proposal of backwards journey". The journey of a God who chooses to be small. Usually it is the little one who becomes great, it is the weak one who wants to become strong, it is the poor person who wants to be rich - the apostolic administrator points out- It is our history that “walks” that way. Greatness and power are our dream, the hidden desire that moves us all, in everyday relations as well as in international relations. A war that every day, the Herods of our time fights to become bigger, to occupy more space, to defend positions and borders". It is "today’s history", he observes with a clear reference to last days’ avalanche of words and "tests of strength" on Jerusalem.
But this is a night that goes beyond every political analysis. There is certainly no lack of recommendation "to those who have the power to decide on our future", to "not fear to dare and risk. Not to fear loneliness. Today, even more so than yesterday - the Prelate explains - we need you, we need a real and serious policy. Despite the many disappointments of the past and that of these recent days, do not give up having a vision. On the contrary let yourself be motivated by the cry of the poor and the afflicted because the Lord never forgets the cry of the afflicted".
And the way in which God does not forget, however, is by calling everyone into question: to the world that seeks "a powerful and strong Kingdom that makes us feel safe and protected", Christmas offers "an opposite sign, a defenceless newborn". It is logic that changes, "From great to small, from strength to weakness, from power to gift, because this is how God acts". I feel this prophecy is particularly true not only for each one of us, but for all of us Christians of the Holy Land - Pizzaballa comments - worried and perhaps frightened by the reduction in our numbers, by the inadequacy of our means, by the insecurity that characterizes our daily life. Amid opposing powers, sometimes victims of greater dynamics and strategies, we would perhaps also like to follow paths of strength and power. Anxiety and fear could make us insensitive to that sign and induce us to turn Christmas into a mere feast of identity and consolation and to seek strength and power, wealth and possession. Yet instead Christmas, thorugh God's action, reveals to us who we are and who we must be as Christians, here and throughout the world."
Here, then, is the message for today's Bethlehem: Faced with the muscular logic that crosses the Holy Land and the whole world, it is necessary to rediscover the "discreet sign of the power of love, humble beginning of a Kingdom of peace and truth, which will come not with the force of weapons but with the conversion of life, with sharing and fraternity, weak perhaps, misunderstood and even contested, yet prophecy and proclamation of the presence of God among men and women".
Hence an appeal to courage, addressed first of all to the Church in the Holy Land, "We can continue to live and stay here, in weakness and poverty - the leadership of the Latin rite community in the Holy Land continues - because these are the ways of God when He wants to come into the world and bless humanity. Which ultimately is the same logic politics are called for, to get us out of the dead end in which we seem to have ended up on the issue of Jerusalem: Courage also to you, powerful of the world - Pizzaballa concludes – “dare the adventure of peace and fraternity, renounce aims of greatness and power and bend to serve the good of your brothers and sisters: the door of humility to the Christmas Basilica is also the entrance to true greatness".
