THE TABLET
Dec. 22, 2007
God Is Here and Waiting!

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

Recently, I read something written by Pope Benedict XVI, when he was Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, in a book entitled Co-Workers of the Truth.  He gives the following reflection which I offer for my Christmas message.  He wrote:

God Waits for Us

“God has become man.  He has become a child.  Thus he fulfills the great and mysterious promise to be Emmanuel:  God with us. Now he is no longer unreachable for anybody.  God is Emmanuel.  By becoming a child, he offers us the possibility of being on familiar terms with him.  I am reminded here of a rabbinical tale recorded by Elie Wiesel.  He tells of Jehel, a little boy, who comes running into the room of his grandfather, the famous Rabbi Baruch.  Big tears are rolling down his cheeks.  And he cries, ‘My friend has totally given up on me.  He is very unfair and very mean to me.’  ‘Well, could you explain this a little more?’ asks the master.  ‘Okay,’ responds the little boy.  ‘We were playing hide and seek.  I was hiding so well that he could not find me.  But then he simply gave up and went home.  Isn’t that mean?’  The most exciting hiding place has lost its excitement because the other stops playing.  The master caresses the boy’s face.  He himself now has tears in his eyes.  And he says, ‘Yes, this is not nice. But look, it is the same way with God.  He is in hiding, and we do not seek him.  Just imagine!  God is hiding, and we people do not even look for him.’  In this little story a Christian is able to find the key to the ancient mystery of Christmas.  God is in hiding.  He waits for his creation to set out toward him, he waits for a new and willing Yes to come about, for love to arise as a new reality out of his creation.  He waits for man.”

Truly, when we seek for the God who is hidden, we must find Him in His creation which is visible to us, most especially those who are around us.  He waits for us to encounter Him in those around us.  There is no better time than Christmas to recognize this way of finding the God who is with us in the people who are around us.  In our love for them we experience the reflection of God’s love.  If we fail to love those around us, we will never discover the God who us hidden from our eyes.

Christmas is the time when we earnestly seek the God who created the universe in His son Jesus, who became man for us.  We recognize in the birth of the Savior the longings of the centuries and our own human longing for one who will save us from what we perceive to be evil.  Christmas is truly the time of finding what is hidden, and we must never give up on the pursuit. We must continually reach out to others, because only then can we find ourselves and find God who is hidden from our eyes.

As we celebrate this Christmas we truly “put out into the deep.” We seek with the deepest longings of our hearts for God’s presence that sometimes eludes us.  At Christmas we are reassured that if we seek God, we will find Him; we cannot give up on the pursuit.

I take this opportunity to wish you and your families a most blessed Christmas and the presence of Emmanuel, God with us, for each and every one of you.