Church of Jesus Christ of the Universe

By Mauro

04.12.2025

(translated audio)

In this season of Advent let us try to contemplate together with Mary Most Holy the love of the Holy Trinity.

The first thing that comes to my mind is the humility of Jesus, which goes beyond… how could our humility be when we recognise what we are, that is creatures in need of everything? He renounces his divine nature to take on human nature; therefore, He enters a dimension of needs, a dimension of having to face difficulties of every kind and every type, and He does this to restore to us the majesty, the divinity that we lost through sin. This is the love of Jesus, but it is also the love of the Father and the Holy Spirit; it is the love of the Holy Trinity.

Contemplating Jesus and the nativity scene – because for a moment we must also look at that – we immediately see how God’s mind is always the opposite of the world’s way of thinking. For the work He comes to do, the work of Redemption, He is born poor in human means – He could have chosen to be born differently – He is born immediately in the most basic needs: cold, hungry, a place to stay. He is immediately visited by the humblest people, the humble of the time, because there was no one more humble than the shepherds. He is not visited by the rich, by princes, apart from the wise men who will come later. He is immediately persecuted, immediately in danger of death.

I think we can say that He consciously decided to enter a world where everything was against life, so that He, as true Life, could defeat death. He did not spare Himself any trial, that is, He faced each of them. Jesus spared Himself nothing, He went through all the passages, all of them. He did so by abandoning Himself to God the Father, He did so by trusting God the Father: although He was God, He needed God the Father. And from there, immediately, He experiences God’s providence: the wise men arrive, not to mention the angels who speak to St Joseph, the simple people, the shepherds immediately helped Him, they found Him a home.

And here we notice a particular detail: when we welcome this, as these simple people did, I repeat, life wins; if we do not welcome it, fears arise. Fear arises in people of losing what they have, fear of what they do not know, to the point of being afraid of a child. Think of what Herod did: the massacre[1]. Fear of a child!

It seems to me that we could say that this fear has deep roots: it is the fear of true life, that life which calls into question all certainties, all those realities that people call life. And that applies to us, too, doesn’t it? I believe that contemplating the nativity scene should also make us reflect on this, on these fears. St Francis of Assisi says about this and would still do: “Love is not loved”[2] , the love of God that descends in this way, that gives Himself, is not loved, but even frightens.

Last time we saw that the difficulty of humanity to reconcile itself with God, through Jesus Christ, is its cross, and the key to this is fear, because it is the main weapon of evil. Evil always acts by arousing fears: fear of suffering, fear of novelty, fear, as the Gospel says, of what we will eat, what we will wear[3] , fear of entering life as God presents it: let ourselves be loved, abandon ourselves, trust. Fears that no one, reasoning humanly, can dispute. They contain a grain of truth, they make sense (I have to worry about what I eat, what I wear…), but they become a strong obstacle when there is no faith in resurrection, when there is no faith in the very work of Jesus. I hope you understand. This is where reconciliation lies. It is not that I do not have to take care about everyday things, but I must never lose this faith in resurrection, I must never lose this faith even when I encounter trials. Jesus nailed all fears to the cross, He nailed all sins, the consequences of fears, to the cross, but it is up to each of us to contemplate the cross and love that love.

If we do not take this step, the cross is foolishness, isn’t it? St Paul says: “A stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles”[4], because we have to contemplate that love which is too great, it overwhelms us: how could He have loved us so much? But by contemplating that love, by reconciling ourselves with that love, Jesus brings us back to the Father. And then, we must believe that a God who loves so much, so very much, will always take us further. But there, every time — I recommend this – it is up to us to say: “I believe, I believe that You can, I believe that You know.” At least the first time, we must say it with words: “I love your cross and I love those crosses that come in the form of trials”, and this cross – one must speak it aloud in order to enter into it – is love and must be loved, love must be loved. Let us not end up the way St Francis said, “Love is not loved.” Love must be loved: “I love your cross, the one to which you are nailed and the one you have planned for me.”

Be aware that evil always tries to present us the easiest way, a way to escape, the seemingly easiest way. I say ‘apparently’, because then that path binds us instead, because our fears increase, it deprives us of freedom, it makes us slaves to an infinity of things, fears and needs, and it deprives us of the strength we have inside, the strength of life, the strength of love. Because, look, we were all created to love and rejoice, and we all have this strength of life. Without this strength, we really see that our fears increase, our fatigue increases, and then we enter a vortex that is not that of the Holy Trinity, where moods, guilt, blame and depression begin, and we become ill. And then, yes, the cross is truly heavy.

I advise you, and I repeat myself here, to adopt the following attitude: “I love your cross”, and then I recommend that you meditate on the “Creed” (Credo). Every sentence of the Creed drives away fear, every sentence! Every sentence opens our soul and directs our life towards God’s action. Every sentence, said slowly, calmly, with faith, as best it goes at that moment, but say ‘I believe’, overcomes fears, because it sets in motion the life that is within us, the primary energy that is within each of us. So, try reciting it calmly, every day from now until Christmas, and say to yourselves: “I believe, I know that with Jesus I too can conquer the world.”

And again, I bless you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

[1] See Matthew 2, 1-18

[2] See St Francis’ message of 17 September 2012, ‘The Pure Love of God’, published on our website in the category “Messages – 2012”.

[3] See Matthew 6, 25-34

[4] See 1 Corinthians 1, 22-25