The celebration of Christmas has for its object the temporal birth of the Son of God's eternal Word perfectly equal to the Father and the Holy Spirit, the one for whom all things were made, was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and was born in a humble stable in Bethlehem in order to save. And 'This is the gripping mystery that the Church proposes to our faith and celebrate on this feast. Imitating this Man-God humble, poor and suffering, is what she says to our heart.
From the man guilty and degraded in coming out of the earthly paradise he had heard that word of hope: "The Son of Donna oppress the serpent" (January III, 15 ), this precious word for centuries the only comfort of the human species in the midst of his immense disaster. The Son of women par excellence, the winner of the devil, the repairer of the fall, the restaurant of the human race was the object of all the votes of all desires. Under the reign of Augustus, in the time appointed for his coming, He came, and his birth was apparently accompanied by all the circumstances foretold by the prophets.
Here crediam well to give a description of the place where it happened always revered the great mystery, that is the cave in which Mary and Joseph had to take refuge at night for not being able to find hotel in the city of Bethlehem, where they took to to enroll their names in public records under the command of Caesar Augustus. He says, therefore, a modern traveler ( route from Paris to Jerusalem, tom. 2, p. 157 - Chateaubriand, 1811 ): "Before you enter it (the cave), the Superior of the convent brought me a candle in his hand and gave me a brief exhortation. This holy cave is irregular, because it occupies the place of the stable and manger irregular. It 's long thirty-seven and a half feet wide, eleven feet three inches and is nine feet high and is carved in stone. The walls of rock that is encrusted with marble, and also acts as its precious marble floor, embellishments that are attributed to St. Helena. The church does not take Varuna light outside, and it is not illuminated by thirty bulbs, donated by various Christian principles. In the bottom of the cave on the side of the east is the site where the Virgin Mary gave birth to the Redeemer of mankind. That site is marked by a white marble inlaid with jasper and surrounded by a circle of silver rays, like the sun. In turn we read these words: Hic de Virgine Maria Jesus Christus natus est - Here Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary - . A marble table, which serves as the altar, is leaning against the side of the rock and it rises above the place where the Messiah was born. This altar is lit by three lamps, the most beautiful of which was donated by Louis XIII. At a distance of seven steps, going around noon, is the manger, where you go down two steps, is not she like the rest of the cave. E 'give her a little time high, carved into the rock. A piece of white marble top over a foot of soil and dug in the form of a cradle, this is the site for which the Saviour of the world was lying on the straw. "
In this cave, Mary gave birth to her divine Son without trying pains common to any of the other mothers, remaining a virgin in childbirth and after delivery as before. At a time when you worked the miracle, that God wanted men and angels, heaven and earth were going to pay their respects to the desired Redeemer. That night the unfortunate bought a brother, a liberating slaves, children, friends, doctors a master, the king a sample. Christmas is the great dawn of our liberation. Jesus Christ is the rising Sun of Justice, located in the world to drive away the shadows of death.
