Each year, Christmas places us before the deepest center of the Christian faith and, at the same time, before a decisive criterion for reading our own history. Christianity is not born from an idea or a program, but from an event that breaks into time: God has chosen to enter human history. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn 1:14) is not a symbolic statement, but the confession that God has assumed fragility, time, and human processes. In the birth of the Child of Bethlehem, a God is revealed who does not act from a distance, but from closeness; a God who does not save from the outside, but from within everyday life.
Pope Benedict XVI expressed this realism of Christianity with particular clarity when he noted that the Incarnation cannot be reduced to a pious image: “God truly became man. He did not remain in the abstract, but entered into the concreteness of a human existence” (Jesus of Nazareth, ch. 1). Christmas thus proclaims that God does not fear human paths, nor their rhythms or stages, and that His way of acting respects time, growth, and maturation. This truth also illuminates our own institutional experience, marked by patient work, perseverance, and fidelity to a mission that cannot be improvised.
The proclamation that resounds in Bethlehem—“Today a Savior has been born to you” (Lk 2:11)—does not belong only to the past. It is a living word that also reaches our present and interprets it. In this year now drawing to a close, the Academy can recognize itself within this evangelical logic: we are still here; we have risen and strengthened our mission. Not from self-sufficiency, but from the conviction that what is truly worthwhile requires time, care, and shared commitment. Christmas teaches us that God works in what is small, silent, and constant, and that it is there that what is truly fruitful is prepared.
Pope Francis has reminded us on many occasions that Christmas is the feast of God’s closeness, a closeness that manifests itself without imposing. In his homily on Christmas Night 2020, he stated: “He came into the world as a child comes into the world, weak and fragile, so that we may welcome our own fragilities with tenderness.” This way in which God acts offers a decisive key for understanding the path our Academy has taken since March of this year: the strength of an institution that arises from recognizing its fragility; the weakness of our humanity; rebuilding in silence and humility, with a vocation to service as its goal; and progress in new and exciting projects centered on the human person and on the dissemination of Catholic Social Doctrine.
From this perspective, Christmas is not an emotional interlude, but a criterion for discerning the present and projecting the future. If God chose to be born as a child, then our human works as well—when grounded in truth, in work done well, and in communion—possess a value that does not depend on noise or immediate recognition. This year has been, in this sense, a time of consolidating the team, strengthening bonds, and clarifying the purpose that unites us. The Incarnation confirms that what grows in a healthy way does so step by step, and that authentic fruitfulness requires deep roots.
The year now concluding also coincides with the Jubilee Year of Hope, proclaimed by Pope Francis under the motto Pilgrims of Hope. It has been a particularly fruitful year, allowing us to see that hope is neither escapism nor naïveté in the face of reality, but trust in the fidelity of God and His promises. A year that profoundly marked our institution, reminding us that only in Him is the true strength that sustains our mission. Omnia possum in eo qui me confortat (Phil 4:13): I can do all things, all is possible, in Him who strengthens me. Celebrating this Jubilee at the moment when one stage closes and another opens helps us read the path traveled not as a simple succession of events, but as a process accompanied and sustained.
In this Year of Hope, we gratefully acknowledge that God has allowed the closing of one stage and the renewed beginning of another to coincide in the same time of grace. This simultaneity is not merely chronological; it can also lead us to discernment and learning: while something is being ordered and brought to completion, something new opens with hope and greater clarity of purpose. Pope Francis, a great prophet of hope, insisted forcefully on moving forward, on the audacity that pushes us to step out of comforts and small securities (Evangelii gaudium). It is this serene audacity that animates our shared project today.
Pope Leo XIV, in his first catecheses on the Incarnation, has emphasized that God’s way of acting is characterized by respect for processes and by perseverance. God does not force time; He inhabits it. In the Incarnation we learn that salvation matures in daily fidelity. This year marks an ending, but also the beginning of a new harvest. Now it is up to us to consolidate what we have strengthened, while patiently caring for the project that is taking root, remembering above all that the fruit is for society, for those who hunger and thirst for justice. To inhabit time means accepting that every work with a vocation for permanence needs to mature. The Child of Bethlehem grows for years in Nazareth before beginning His public life. Our mission, too, has been strengthened through constant work and mutual trust. Christmas legitimizes this pedagogy of growth and reminds us that what is truly solid is not born of haste, but of fidelity.
Let us therefore look to the future with serene and responsible hope. Let us now avoid fatalism, naïveté, or pride that could lead us to retrace our steps. Let us remember that we can live the future with enthusiasm as long as we are truly following Him, being faithful to the Gospel. Our Christmas must be the Christmas of Mary and Joseph: waiting with joy for the coming of the Son of God; waiting while knowing themselves blessed by the gift received; waiting while knowing they would not do everything perfectly, but that in their yes to God’s plan they would always be sustained by the One who called them first. And, of course, following the example of the Blessed Virgin Mary, pondering and treasuring everything in our hearts (Lk 2:19), enjoying the journey and living it with intensity and love.
May this Christmas, lived in the Jubilee Year of Hope, reaffirm in us the conviction that our mission has meaning because it participates in the very logic of the Incarnation: to begin in what is small, to grow strong over time, and to trust in the fruitfulness of the future. May the Child who has been given to us teach us to continue working with humility and joy. And may the new year find us united, strengthened, and filled with hope for the path that opens before us.