If we want to meet the God who appeared as a child, we must get off the horse of our 'enlightened' reason. We must lay down our false certainties and intellectual arrogance, preventing us from perceiving God's closeness. We must follow the inner path of St. Francis: the path to that extreme outer and inner simplicity that makes the heart capable of seeing. We must get off, walk spiritually on foot, so to speak, to enter through the portal of faith and meet God, who is different from our prejudices and opinions: the God who is hidden in the humility of a newborn child. Let us celebrate the liturgy in this way [...] and give up our obsession with what is material, measurable, and tangible. Let us allow ourselves to be made simple by that God who manifests himself to the heart made simple. And we also pray at this hour especially for all those who have to live [...] in poverty, in pain, in the condition of migrants, that a ray of God's goodness may appear before them; that the goodness which God, by the birth of his Son in the stable, wished to bring into the world, may reach them and us”.
Faith in Jesus, who died and rose again for us and for our salvation, finds its most vivid expression in the celebration of the mystery of Christ throughout the year. Although the centre of the celebration revolves around the high solemnity of Easter, it leans first and foremost on the weekly rhythm marked by Sunday. This day is crucial because it commemorates the Lord's resurrection and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
If from the very beginning of the Church, the weekly celebration of Sunday and the annual Easter was common to the various communities, gradually, other liturgical feasts appeared. To this first Easter cycle, celebrated from the beginning, was later added the cycle of the Lord's birth or manifestation.
The feasts of Christmas and Epiphany appeared in the Christian calendar in the early fourth century, although in different places. Christmas began to be celebrated in the Church of Rome and Epiphany in the East, almost certainly in Egypt. Both celebrations quickly spread throughout the Church.
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N. 119 - 2023.3
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