The incarnation is not only something that happened two thousand years ago, but God continues to become incarnate in every believer’s heart today.

And in the Christ child born in Bethlehem, God revealed his humility, manifesting his power and glory through poverty and fragility.

In the "official" greetings sent to friends and communities here in Rome, we included the following quotation from one of Father d’Alzon’s Christmas meditations (in 1875):

It nicely reflects our founder’s faith that, in the simple man Jesus and in the humanity that he embraced through the incarnation, God is truly present with all of his power and all of his glory.

How difficult it is at times to "embrace this humanity"! But it is this fragile humanity (is there any other kind?) that God embraced, and it is with and through this humanity that he showed His face. No doubt, that face is often obscured and difficult to perceive, but it is only by loving what He created that God could begin to dispel the darkness and make His light shine more brightly. We do well to imitate God’s "pedagogy".

With faith and confidence, along with Father d’Alzon, may we begin to recognize in this "unusual palace", our own person and the world in which we live, the presence of the humble one who is our king.

Fraternally,

Richard E. Lamoureux, a.a.,

Superior General

20 December 2009