Christmas 1965
In 1965, while the Second Ecumenical Vatican Council was concluding, Chiara draws us in the hope of a Christmas that marks a rebirth. The event of the incarnation is an anticipation of Easter.
Christmas: this year also rekindles its vivid memory, a celebration of Baby Jesus’ birth. Christmas brings back a flavour of eternal rebirth and fills the air – even in the harshest winter – with the atmosphere and the perfume of spring, the birth of the seasons. But this year, Christmas is perceived in a special way.
The Second Vatican Council renewed the Church, injecting her with a new vigour and placing her on top of the lampstand of the world, so that her newness may be seen and admired. The Church becomes relevant for today’s challenges, not able to remain crystallized in the past formulas. She is splendid and revitalized by an always new blood, the eternal and genuine one of the Scriptures and the holy Tradition.
And we, insignificant members of this glorious mystical Body, together with the Church, we feel the youthfulness blossoming in her soul again. We compare ourselves to the small world that surrounds us in order to win it over to the truth with the fascination that Christ, who was born again in us, wants to radiate.
Christmas 1965: Christmas in the Church, of the Church… Christmas in us for the Church. Yes, a true, effective Christmas, where the words suggested by the Holy Spirit in that great ecumenical council become life, and the life in each one merges with the life of many people, and the Church covered in beauty truly stands out as the Bride of Christ.
Chiara Lubich
