Rome, Italy, December 1, 2017
This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger
Lk 2: 12
Gospel of the Midnight Mass of the Nativity of the Lord
Dear Fathers, Brothers, Seminarians, and Novices,
As we approach the beginning of Advent, which is a time of greater purification of our souls, as a means of preparation for the celebration of the august mystery of Christmas, I want to greet you with the greatest affection. This year, this preparation is particularly and providentially enlightened by the 475th anniversary of the birth of Saint John of the Cross, religious priest and doctor of the Church, whose feast we celebrate during this month of December.
I say this because the Mystical Doctor found the nucleus and model of the progressive purification of the soul in the night of Christmas and in the “nothingness of Bethlehem.” This purification is necessary for climbing the heights of Christian perfection, and it is nothing other than “imitating, as perfectly as possible,” Christ come in the flesh, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.
The most tender mystery of the birth “of the Son of God having become human”-in the cold, in his poverty and nakedness—is the symbolic image of the night which, in the writings of St. John, has come to symbolize the intervention of God which “radically purifies the spirit and prepares it for the union of love with him.” It is a night that he considers to be “a typically human and Christian experience” and which pleases God to work in the depths of our souls, for he can make good come out of evil in a wise and beautiful manner”.
And so, the simplicity and darkness of that night in Bethlehem on which God himself chose to be born, small and naked, are as an icon of the virtues of the self-emptying of God, whose overabundant love led him to become man so as to give himself to us and “communicate to us the riches of his divinity.” These virtues of “humility, poverty, suffering, obedience, self-denial, mercy, and love for all men,” which we should “intensely practice” “in conformity with our own charism” so as to “configure ourselves to Christ” and, in this way, to achieve our end as religious of the Incarnate Word.
For this reason, with this circular letter, I propose to you all to contemplate the mystery of Christmas in the splendor of light which shines forth from the Word’s emptying of self in his birth, guided by the doctrine of the “master in the faith and witness to the living God,” as our dear Spiritual Father so tastefully called Saint John of the Cross.
It is my hope that these lines may serve in better disposing our souls to receive the Child God “in all humility and detachment, both interior and exterior,” so that God might full us with unspeakable delight and peace.
1. Saint John of the Cross and Christmas
In his Spiritual Canticle, Saint John of the Cross writes that “knowledge of the Incarnation of the Word and the mysteries of faith, since these are more remarkable works of God, embodying in themselves a greater love… produces in the soul a more intense love.”
Saint John of the Cross experienced the mystery of the Word made flesh in such a lively way, and had his soul so wounded by love for God in his humanity, that those who heard him speak “pondered that he spoke in such a way about the things of God and the mysteries of our faith as if he had seen them with his very eyes.”
Thanks to the gift of faith, so eminent in this saint, the mystery formed for him a living and real world. “He treated familiarly with Him…He carried God in his heart and on his lips.” And so, it was normal to hear him speak “in an elevated way about the incarnate God, because he had a particular loving affection towards the person of the Divine Word made man, and he spoke of this Lord most admirably and with the greatest tenderness.”
This devotion and tendency to speak “to the heart words bathed in sweetness and love” were particularly evident in Saint John of the Cross during Christmas time. For, “in those days, he seemed to be transformed, as if he came out of himself. He, who was ordinarily so serious, exalted and let himself be carried away by an outward joy, which he expressed through words, with songs, and with spiritual games.”
For example, as Master of Novices in Mancera de Abajo, Salamanca “he had the novices, offhandedly present some mystery of the mystery; where if they said something simply, he took from it heavenly concepts.”
Another time, while exercising his role as prior in Los Mártires de Granada—which is precisely when he wrote his work “The Dark Night”—“…made them place the Mother of God on a wood stand, and placed on his shoulders, accompanied by the servant of the Lord and of the other religious who, walking through the cloister, followed our Lady, and arriving at the doors throughout the cloister, would ask for a place to stay for that lady who was so close to giving birth, and for her husband, who were coming from a journey. Arriving at the first door, asking for some place, they would sing these lines that the Saint composed:
“the Virgin will come walking
down the road
pregnant with the holy, and say,
“I need shelter for the night”
And they went, singing these verses, door to door, while the religious who had been set there, waiting on the inside, quickly dismissed them. The Saint would respond to them with such tender words, so as to explain who the guests were, about the approaching birth of the lady, of the weather and what time it was, in such a way, that the fire of his words and the heights which they exposed softened the hearts of those who listened to him and imprinted in their souls this mystery and the great love of God.”
The convent in Segovia was also witness to the palpable devotion and the genuine charity which the mystery of Christmas awoke in the Mystical Doctor. The account of Fray Lucas de San José gives us a glimpse of the delicate care with which Saint John of the Cross sought to solemnize the Birth of Christ: “He was a friend of the divine worship, and so on the feast days he came down to set up the altars and the Church; he rejoiced in seeing everything particular and well adorned, he greatly thanked the sacristans, and he delighted in seeing his religious during the feasts preparing the altar of the Nativity, or at least, placing there some image of our Lady with the Holy Child in her arms, which caused tenderness in him and his religious.”
All of the examples mentioned so far remind us of those words in our proper law which say: “Among other things, the birth of the Incarnate Word…urges us to live in joy – a fruit of the Holy Spirit and a consequence of the Incarnation – as the angel announced to the shepherds: I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people.” For, “the immortality of blessedness becomes credible from the Incarnation of the Son of God,” and as a consequence, “the Christian pilgrimage must be accompanied with song, with manifestations of joy.”
Therefore, Christmas day “must be exalted by every means. We must not hold back any efforts or time so that this day be at its best; it should be long waited for, and subsequently, bring forth a sense of deep valuing of it, as well as gratitude for it,” as we are taught from our time in the Novitiate. Such festivities should go on throughout the Octave of Christmas and should spready joy to all the souls that we come into contact with.
For us—as it was for Saint John of the Cross—the mystery of the Incarnate Word is the axis of our spiritual life, for as our proper law says: “The center of our life must be Jesus Christ.” He—through his radical self-emptying, informed by humility—is the source from which stem all the principles of the spirituality of our beloved Institute. He—in his utmost humiliation—is the platform from which “we want to fervently set out to restore all things in Christ.” This Word Incarnate, in his “immeasurable humility in his judgment – internal and external,” who we contemplate at Christmas as small, needy, and most pure, is the model “of living fraternal life in community and our apostlate: in humble service and generous surrender, in the free gift of self through loving until the end.” He is also the canticle in our poems “for, to sing and to intone psalms is the business of those who love.”
Therefore, “Christmas night thus becomes a school of faith and of life” where the God child—fragile and small—rises up as “an illustrious example of the practice of mortifying virtues to a profound degree. Without ceasing to be the infinite God, He became a finite man, showing us infinite humility, poverty, obedience and love.” For, in that first Christmas Eve, the very same Incarnate Word made child, lying in a manger who “being the Creator of the human race, himself became man; who by his very hands nourishes the birds of the sky, now needs milk to be nourished; who reigns in heaven and over earth, and nevertheless is resting on straw; who was born into time, though he existed before time began; who is the maker of the stars, places himself below them; who reigns over all the earth, is an exile; the one to fill the entire world, does not find a place for himself in the inn. And he shows us and demonstrates through his abysmal emptying of self that that is precisely the way to “pass from the all to the All.”
2. “To share in Christ’s emptying of Himself”
In the second point of our Constitutions, we say that “We want to live in a state that ‘constitutes a closer imitation and an abiding re-enactment in the Church of the way of life embraced by God’s Son when he came into the world,’” which unmistakably makes reference to the emptying of self of our Lord. That is why, repeatedly, throughout our entire proper law, we say that it is our determinate intention, and we are resolved “to especially practice [in all radicality] the virtues that allow us to share more fully in Christ’s emptying of Himself.” Therefore, the virtues of self-denial of our Redeemer become the natural adornment and the principal distinctive sign which should shine forth in all the members of our beloved Institute.
Therefore, I desire, with the light of the “Holy Spirit who teaches” and in keeping with the wise style of Saint John of the Cross, whom our proper law refers to as “great teacher of spiritual life” and through whose doctrine we should learn to become virtuous men, to comment on the virtues of mortification of the self-emptying lived according to the particular style of our charism and our own spirituality.
There are several occasions in which our proper law enumerates the virtues of self-denial. I list them once more here: “humility, justice, sacrifice, poverty, suffering, obedience, and merciful love…; more succinctly, we simply want to take up our cross.” Our Directory of Spirituality also mentions them, although it groups “justice and sacrifice” into the expression “self-denial” and mentions that ““all men” must be objects of our love and mercy.
It is worth mentioning that the first of these virtues is humility. And, how could it be any other way? If the Incarnate Word Himself described himself by saying: I am meek and humble of heart. All of his existence speaks to us of his humility. For He, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped…he humbled himself… and took on the form of a slave, coming in human likeness without ceasing to be God. Consequently, if we want to imitate Jesus Christ as perfectly as possible, humility must be our fundamental, basilar virtue, and in a certain way, the grace of our entire religious life.
“Only by being humble will we be saints.” Therefore, our spirituality urges us to fully live this virtue after the example of Christ himself who “did not shirk from being thought of as another sinner,” and who calls us to be “humble and hidden builders of the Kingdom of God from whose words, behavior, and life irradiates the luminous joy of the choice that we made.”
The virtue of humility, so important and necessary for our spiritual life, is none the less important for our community life and for our apostolates. As a matter of fact, the practice of humility or the lack of it in dealing with others has great influences in both areas. That is why our proper law states with a fatherly firmness that we are asked to “learn to have one another as greater than ourselves each looking out not for his own interests, but everyone for those of others;” Being subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ;… clothing yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another”
Such is the hunger which we must ordinarily have in our souls: that of the emptying of self, making ourselves obedient even to death, death on a cross. From this, we can see that humility is the principle of the life of obedience. And if we are truly humble and obedient, there will be unity and genuine peace, and the Constitutions assure us that “we will have a peaceful and happy life in the congregation.”
Saint John of the Cross, in speaking of those who are truly humble, says that the are those who “not only thinking naught of their own affairs, but having very little satisfaction with themselves; they consider all others as far better, and usually have a holy envy of them, and an eagerness to serve God as they do. For the greater is their fervour, and the more numerous are the works that they perform, and the greater is the pleasure that they take in them, as they progress in humility, the more do they realize how much God deserves of them, and how little is all that they do for His sake.”
And so, he who is authentically humble, who “understands clearly that without Jesus Christ, we can do nothing,” with a great forgetfulness of self—in imitation of Christ himself—does not place vain pretenses nor in the slightest way fear to go to “the lowliest and most demanding places.” Rather, with all his apostolic enthusiasm founded in Jesus Christ, with great daring, he is ““willing to die, like the grain of wheat, in order to see Christ in all things.” For, precisely speaking, “the practical virtue of the gift of oneself is humility.” Once in the place where Providence has assigned him, he makes all the effort to be happy, even amidst suffering, for he knows that “progress comes not save through the imitation of Christ.”
Moreover, convinced that for “a genuine inculturation requires attitudes similar to those of the Lord when he became man and walked among us in love and meekness,” in service of others, he is not arrogant, nor galling, “nor does he adopt an attitude of superiority over others.” On the contrary, he knows how to reasonably adapt himself and to keep at all times a “state of mind…that is characteristic of the man who realizes the seriousness of the apostolic mission.” Such a religious will truly be fruitful—spiritually and apostolically speaking—no matter how desolate and inhospitable the land he missions in may be: “Everything is in knowing how to die! This is the great science!” Furthermore: Do we want to persevere in our vocation? Let us be humble. Only in this way will we continue giving of ourselves.
Therefore, if we truly want to honor and serve the Incarnate Word—as is fitting to our vocation—we should strive to practice the royal virtue of humility, which is the proper virtue of our Lord.
Acting in any other way, at least in my point of view, is not having understood “the style of the Incarnate Word.” That is why we are often warned about the danger of “inordinately seeking our own excellence, and refusing to submit to others or to recognize their excellence…thinking oneself to be self-sufficient, thereby refusing other’s teachings.” Look at how different that attitude is from that of the God Child. “We must never forget that ‘obedience is the aroma of sacrifice’.”
It becomes imperative, then, that “those who are in our houses of formation be prepared to carry out great works for the glory of God in the missions where they will be sent, that they cultivate a great love for the virtues which form the foundation of spiritual growth,” of which the first is humility. For, “God opposes the proud but bestows favor on the humble. (1 Pet 5: 5). And if God opposes a missionary, what can the missionary possibly do?”
Another virtue of self-denial is poverty, which in the mystery of the Birth of Christ stands out in such a sharp way, allowing us to see the contradistinction in the most tender Person of the Child lying in a manger as the poorest of the poor.
Our Constitutions explain to us in a magnificent way the evangelical counsel of poverty in the points 60-71. There we are taught that to reach perfection, we are “to follow the naked Christ being ourselves naked.” That means detachment and voluntary renunciation of riches, which implies a life poor both in act and in spirit, eagerly restrained and detached from earthly riches. Furthermore, it implies a life entirely dependent on Divine Providence.
Our way is that of “following Christ poor in the deepest meaning of his poverty,” which means even to the self-denial of becoming man so as to share with us the riches of his divinity. This is put into practice by giving of oneself to others, making ourselves dispensers of good. We, who want to serve Jesus Christ, should do it “not as a mercenary who wants his wage after a day of work, nor as a servant who works for a salary during a certain period of time so as to be able to obtain an independent position. We should serve Christ without limits, without free days, without rest, and without glory.” In such a way that, stripped of all things, that is to say, of “all that is not God,” “in great nakedness of spirit and without support in creatures” having our riches in giving ourselves totally to the Word.
That is why we are exhorted to a total detachment, to “deprive oneself for God of all that is not God.” For as Saint John of the Cross says, “the gifts of God do not fall upon nor fit into anything other than an empty and solitary heart.” Therefore, the saint goes on to say “the religious, as God desires him to be, is done with all things and all things are over for him; because God himself desires to be his riches, his rest, and his delectable glory.” “In this detachment the spiritual soul finds its quiet and repose.”
We, who are religious missionaries, should be even more conscious that “the silent witness of poverty and detachment….can be—and actually by the grace of God in many of our missions is—an appeal to the world and to the members of the Church itself, an eloquent preaching, capable of even touching those non-Christians of good will.” How can we forget the example of our missionaries who work in places of particular difficulties or risks, as in the Middle and Far East, and of so many of ours who are missioning in poor villages, or small towns, as well as those who find themselves in the great metropolitans of the world, carrying forth a tenor of life which is modest and exemplary.
All of us—whatever our condition or office may be—should be “willing to sacrifice everything without reservation, convinced that nothing is as advantageous as abandoning ourselves into the hands of God,” for as long as we are not lacking in prayer “God will take care of his enterprise, for it does not belong to anyone else, and it never shall.”
This leads us onto sacrifice or self-denial as other virtues which shine forth in the self-denial, “which belongs…to the very essence of the Christian vocation. But it belongs in a particular way to the essence of the vocation linked to the profession of the evangelical counsels.”
Throughout our entire proper law “this is the resounding idea: to sacrifice oneself.”
Therefore, shortly after entering the Novitiate—and from then onward—we are encouraged to go onwards on the “way of greater perfection,” which our proper law defines as that of self-denial, total death to self, renunciation of oneself, or sacrificing oneself, that we mentioned earlier. And all of this proposed as a way to reach the perfection of charity, the end of consecrated life.
For this reason, if our members are to imitate the Incarnate Word, the Constitutions, demand that “with particular concern they should be so formed in priestly obedience, in a simple way of life and in the spirit of self-denial, that they are accustomed to willingly giving up even those things which are permitted but are not expedient, and to conform themselves to Christ crucified.”
We, religious of the Incarnate Word, “must die to our former selves, to sin, to sinful affections and even more, to the very appearance of evil.” But, even more so, considering that our way of living is that of the spirit of a prince, by which one is able to give things that no one demands and abstain from things that no one prohibits, seeking to unceasingly aspire to a holier and more perfect life, we should also die “to sins, even to the slightest and the smallest imperfections; to the world and all external things; to the senses and the immoderate care of one’s own body; to one’s character and natural defects…to one’s own will and spirit; to esteem and love of ourselves; to spiritual consolations: one day God will withdraw them completely; to everything that gives support to our soul and to any assurance about the state of our soul; to any property concerning holiness: total nakedness,” as the Child who was born in Bethlehem.
This is what Saint John of the Cross so vividly describes in his works: “Christ is the Way, and that this Way is death to our natural selves, in things both of sense and of spirit.” Therefore, “the more completely he is annihilated for God’s sake, according to these two parts, the sensual and the spiritual, the more completely is he united to God and the greater is the work which he accomplishes. And when at last he is reduced to nothing, which will be the greatest extreme of humility, spiritual union will be wrought between the soul and God, which in this life is the greatest and the highest state attainable. This consists not, then, in refreshment and in consolations and spiritual feelings, but in a living death of the Cross, both as to sense and as to spirit that is, both inwardly and outwardly.” This is why we are encouraged to courageously dispose ourselves to go through the active and passive purifications of the senses and of the spirit, desiring that this Christ might cost us something.
All of which brings to our life an ordinary suffering, which in turn opens the door to the next virtue of self-denial: suffering.
“Since God chooses suffering to redeem us, it is precious and invaluable when it is endured with patience, accepted as coming from God, and sanctified by uniting it to the pain of Christ.” With this magnificent sentence, our Directory of Spirituality begins to develop the topic of suffering as a part of the redeeming mystery of Christ in which we should participate.
“The co-redemptive efficacy of our sufferings depends on their union with the Cross, and in the measure and degree of that union… If we do not learn how to be victims with the Victim, all our sufferings are useless.”
Therefore, we are called to “learn how to complete what is missing in the Passion of Christ with affective reparation – by prayer and love; effective reparation – fulfilling one’s own duties, apostolate, etc.; and afflictive reparation – by sanctified suffering, for our own spiritual welfare and for the Mystical Body’s.”
And so, whatever our pains may be, we should suffer them for love of Christ and for our own benefit, for, ultimately, they are “door knockers and blows to the soul so as to love more” and “it is what is most convenient for us, and all that is left is to apply our will to it, so that, it might appear to us as it truly is.” This is what we commonly mean when we say that we must “adapt our minds.”
In continuation, and as the concomitant strength of all the other virtues of self-denial, we find merciful love for all men.
Our Constitutions clearly say: “The priest is a man of charity and is called to educate others according to Christ’s example and the new commandment of brotherly love (cf. Jn 15: 12). But this requires that he allow himself to be constantly trained by the Spirit in the charity of Christ. In this sense preparation for the priesthood must necessarily involve a proper formation in charity, and particularly in the preferential love for the ‘poor’ in whom our faith discovers Jesus (Mt 25: 40), and a merciful love for sinners.”
Our missionary spirituality is characterized, or even more so, is inspired and animated by the very charity of Christ, which consists in paternal attention, tenderness, compassion, being welcoming, readiness, interest in the people’s problems. “To be able to announce to all men that they are loved by God and that he himself is capable of love [it is necessary that each of us] give a witness of charity towards all men, spending our life for our neighbor. The same sweet Christ who at Christmas we will contemplate made Child for love of us.
From us, as missionaries of the Incarnate Word, we are expected and “demanded to have a fraternal charity which is ever increasing towards those whom we evangelize” until we can say with Saint Paul: With such affection for you, we were determined to share with you not only the gospel of God, but our very selves as well, so dearly beloved had you become to us. Furthermore, the charity that is expected of us should be—as our proper law says—greater than that of a teacher; it is the love of a father; but, above all, it should be the love of a mother. For, it is that maternal love, by which it behooves that all should be animated who cooperate in the apostolic mission of the Church for the regeneration of men.
That is why our small and beautiful Religious Family, as a prolongation of the Incarnation, humbly desires, through the works of mercy, to continue revealing to men the merciful love of God, loving God himself through the concrete love for our brothers. For, as the Doctor of faith and the dark night says: “At the evening of life, you will be examined in love.”
Only through the persevering and fervent practice of the virtues of self-denial do we begin to reproduce in our souls that “nothingness of Bethlehem” which transfigures our lives in that of a child, wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. “Because the beloved becomes one with the lover and so does God act with those who love him.”
* * * * *
Dearest priests, brothers, seminarians, and novices: the way to perfection which we should walk on is presented to us in all its austerity and tenderness in the mystery of the Birth of the Son of God which we are about to celebrate. On this narrow way, there is room only for self- denial and the Cross, which is the staff wherewith one may reach one’s goal. May we not be startled by the bitterness, nor may our souls shrink before the narrowness of the gate, not may we turn back when faced by the darkness of the night, for with those who “love God well, he takes care of their undertakings, although they do not ask for it.” Let us go onward with the fervor of the saints! For, “this life, if not used to imitate Christ, is no good.”
May we always have great courage and serenity of soul! For the true Light which was born in the dark corner of Bethlehem that first Christmas always triumphs in all of our nights. Let us march on through the world, convinced that we have been thought of by God to be multipliers of Christmas, which means, generous multipliers of the infinite Goodness of God, who in his great mercy had as his greatest joy, becoming visible in the Person of a child, wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
The Virgin Mary who “in astonishment looked on such an exchange: the cries of the man of God, and in man, cries of joy,” fill you with unspeakable joy at recognizing yourselves as chosen and loved by the very same God Child.
May, during this Christmas, the contemplation of the nativity scene of Bethlehem bring to the depths of our souls the most sublime and sweet news that in silent love, the Word came to teach us to love and to surrender ourselves. For the only thing which is truly great and sublime in this life is becoming nothing like God himself did.
We ask the Virgin to grant us the grace during this Christmas to always have a wise vision over our own consecrated life, which perspective God born in the stable gives us.
May you have a spiritually fruitful Advent and a happy and holy Christmas.
In the Incarnate Word and his Mother, the Most Holy Virgin,
Fr. Gustavo Nieto, IVE
General Superior
