1 December 1990
To Each Confrere

The Church lives at once on the mountain and in the market place. One could say that during the past three decades particularly she has lived in the marketplace, where she has been pained by the sight of an increasing number of poor people who are also being made to suffer many injustices. In her loving concern the Church has not only raised her voice in protest, but has encouraged us to translate that concern into concrete actions. (cf. Sollicitudo Rei Socialis , ß43).

The Church also lives on the mountain from which she can see, though in a dark manner, the vast vistas of eternal life that stretch beyond the frontiers of time. Indeed the eternal life the Church proclaims and to which she calls humanity is more than the perfection of life as we know it on this earth. The life she proclaims and to which she invites humanity to share is the eternal life of God. "The eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us," (1 Jn 1:2) found its fullest and most adequate expression in Jesus Christ, Who was born of the Virgin Mary.

The mystery of Christmas is the celebration of the call of humanity to share that eternal life of God. As we are reminded each day at Mass, the invitation is "to share in the divinity of Christ, Who humbled himself to share in our humanity."

Both from the mountain and from the market place the church proclaims the good news that all are called to share in the life of God. As Pope Paul VI expressed it: "Evangelization, then, will include a prophetic proclamation of that other life which is man's sublime and eternal vocation. This vocation is at once connected with and distinct from his present state; it is the vocation of a life to come which transcends time and history and all the transient circumstances of this world of which the hidden significance will one day be revealed.... But evangelization will not be complete unless it constantly relates the Gospel to men's actual lives, personal and social." (Evangelii Nuntiandi, ß28-29).

Between the mountain and the market place there is the cave of Bethlehem. It speaks to all of us of new life. It also speaks sadly to us of the selfishness of humanity. The poignancy of St. Luke's phrase, "because there was no place for them in the inn," (Lk 2:7) reminds us that, then as now, there is a great gap between the haves and the have-nots in society and among the nations. The celebration of Christmas challenges each one of us to close, even by a millimeter, that wide gap.