The Son of God has become Our Brother

Letter on the Occasion of 800 Years of Celebrating the Mystery of the Nativity at Greccio

Prot. N. 00001/23

Dear Brothers,

May the Lord give you peace!

I. Introduction

1. The Christmas Season is not yet over, and I imagine you are all enriched by the great, surprising joy granted by the Savior to those who welcome him at his birth. Thus, even in our condition as wayfarers in this world fraught with problems and difficulties often greater than ourselves, we are, as it were, driven anew to recognize how good the Lord is, how he continues to fill us with numerous gifts, and how there are so many reasons to justify our resolve for cultivating a heart full of hope and gratitude.

2. As you all already know, this year marks the beginning of the centenary celebrations which will progressively lead us to the great Easter celebration of St. Francis in 2026. Together with the entire Franciscan family throughout the world, we will be encouraged continually to give thanks to God for the Poverello of Assisi – his great gift to the Church and to society; and to commit ourselves one and all to giving back the many gifts we have also received through him and continue to receive.[1]

It seems a good time, then, to take this opportunity to address a thought to you.

The year 2023 will mark the centenary of both the approval of the Regola bollata and of the nativity scene at Greccio – centenaries that are in some ways closely linked, but in this letter, I wish to limit myself to Greccio.

3. We are told that when St. Francis hears the Gospel, he does so in a very personal and original way: he uses some texts to interpret others and make the Gospel come alive. For example: in the prologue of John’s Gospel (Cf. Jn. 1:14), Francis contemplates the Word becoming flesh and setting up his tent among us; but with the help of Matthew, he discovers what kind of flesh the Word has chosen: that of the hungry, of the thirsty, of the migrant, the naked, the infirm; the prisoner (Cf. Mt. 25:31-36). In this way the mystery of the Incarnation becomes concrete and palpable before his eyes.

4. Faced with God’s humility manifested in the Incarnation, it is impossible not to be seized with awe; indeed, perhaps there is room only for awe, for a kind of enchantment and overflowing joy. Words are no longer enough: it becomes necessary to see, touch, hear, smell, let ourselves be moved… because God is love without measure; He always loves in excess. Then Francis, through a simple and wonderful portrayal, tries to transform this love of God into something tangible and concrete: he makes the little cave of Greccio another Bethlehem, so that we can feel the cold of the night, share in the joy of Joseph and Mary, be intimately touched by the tenderness of the Child, share in the amazement of the shepherds, hear the song of the angels, experience the overflowing exultation – impossible to contain, and so, inevitably to be shared. How much life, how much strength and how much authenticity would we take in this year and pass along to others if we’d only break down our defenses, tear open the armor of our ideas and allow the wonder of the mystery of God incarnate to envelope us a little more!

5. God became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich (2 Cor 8:9). Caught up in the mystery of the Incarnate Word, Francis discovers that in poverty lies the unmistakable road on which to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, from his birth in Bethlehem to his passion on Calvary. At the risk of reducing centenaries to mere celebrations or superficial rites, we must never forget that our love for the poor Jesus is closely linked to, and indeed an inseparable reality with, love for the poor. Pope Francis repeats this emphatically many times to us, and even recently in his address to the members of the Centenary Commission: to renew, strengthen and creatively implement the values of our charism toward the future, we must place Jesus and the poor at the center. This is our perennial ‘challenge’: the poor; to direct our free and generous service preferentially to the poor because they are abundantly enriched by God’s condescension.[2]

6. Having seen firsthand the insanity and absurdity of the war in Ukraine, I feel that I understand a little more from where stems the crisis of trust that seems to characterize our current culture: every day we trust people and institutions less. More and more, people think that human beings are not good and act only out of fear or selfish interests. Therefore, today more than ever we need to regain trust. It is precisely God incarnate who confirms for us that it is worthwhile and wonderful to be human, that human beings are worthy even of God. Our Lord never tires of waiting for the best from us. Let us never forget – I want to say this to everyone, and especially to those who are going through some difficulties: God trusts in us, in each of us without exception; and through the mystery of his Incarnation, he makes from our humanity the only reliable path for reaching him.

II. The Mystery of the Incarnation in Franciscan Spirituality

7. It is known that in Franciscan thought love always occupies the center and is the fundamental key for helping us to interpret the mysteries of reality. Traveling the affective path, we understand that one can only know well what one loves. So, while not denying the consequences that the Incarnation poses in the process of our redemption, we are more convinced that it is gratuitous love, and not sin, that somehow explains God’s free decision to become incarnate. This is why Franciscan anthropology is said to be positive, optimistic and dynamic: because sin is not capable of destroying the goodness that God has placed in our lives. At the same time, it allows us to remember that we are not wretched beings, eternally condemned to failure, because with God’s grace, we can always initiate processes of change that will confidently redirect the meaning of our lives toward the good.[3]

a) Contemplating the Incarnation with the eyes of faith

8. In Bethlehem the Most High and Almighty God stripped Himself of His divine condition and clothed Himself in our weakness (Cf. Phil. 2:6-11). But the eyes of the flesh are not enough, we need the spiritual eyes of faith to discover the glory of God hidden in the humanity of the Incarnation. So, my brothers, may the centennial celebration of Greccio be for us a good opportunity for reconsidering our images of God and fortifying our faith. Through times of reflection and contemplation, we purify our vision and the complex realm of our desires; let us daily contemplate with St. Francis the mystery of gratuitous love for which God makes himself infinitely small and vulnerable – our hearts will experience a sense of peace and joy, along with the need to give thanks and praise. And so, we will learn to impart to others a beautiful face of God, a desirable God, a close God who loves us freely and wants our good.

b) Contemplating the Incarnation with the eyes of the fraternity

9. In the mystery of the Incarnation, the Son becomes our brother. God presents himself completely helpless, stripped of all power.[4] The Child lying in the crib cannot be a threat to anyone; on the contrary, contemplating him we are moved to tenderness and confidence. Through this Child, the Son, God enters into relationship with us, and reminds us once again, that without relationships it is not possible to live. Thus, the centenary of Greccio also offers us the opportunity to review our fraternal relationships.

Matthew says that what we have received freely we must freely give (cf. Mt 10:8). So, if God’s absolute gratuitousness and humility decisively characterize the mystery of the Incarnation, then gratuitousness and humility are the traits that must also clearly characterize our relationships. They, gratuitousness and humility, will safeguard us from competitive individualism, sad narcissism and empty pursuit of power and prestige, all of which exist in our midst.

It is better instead to be honest with ourselves, to recognize and accept with serenity our limitations, our poverty and powerlessness; then we will be able to accept the same in others as well and enter into true relationships with them. Recognizing weakness as a fundamental reality of our human condition does not mean passivity or resignation; if nothing else, because it is precisely our very weakness that is assumed by the Word; on the contrary, our own human weakness demands from us much courage and boldness so that we can strive to engage with others toward justice and truth, and against the deceptive attitudes of force and power.

c) Contemplating the Incarnation with the eyes of the poor

10. It is not uncommon for us to see only the most romantic aspects of the Incarnation while forgetting what it means that God chose to be poor and lesser. Francis, on the other hand, contemplates the face of Jesus made a poor child, without forgetting the actual faces of so many poor people he met along his path; this allows him to grasp the truly human traits of the person of Jesus. In most of the pastoral visits I made in recent years, I have been repeatedly surprised by the amount of social works that the various circumscriptions support on behalf of the poor. This makes me feel somewhat proud to be a Capuchin. And I hope that our personal involvement with the poor will grow even more to the point that our choice of being minors becomes our specific vantage from which to contemplate life; that is, not only with the eyes of our intellect, but especially from the point of view of the poor, whom we want to be our teachers. From them we can learn to live in a simpler way centered on fundamental things. Then, our vocation as lesser brothers, from the perspective of the Incarnation, will also commit us to fighting poverty and inequality so that no human being feels left out.[5]

III. Other Propositions

11. It would be nice if all of us together were able to transform these simple reflections into propositions that would help us make realistic experiences of the Incarnation today, in the actual local fraternities in which we live. With affection and hope, God continues to implement salvation day after day in the world, in the Church and in our Order. It would be enough for us to sincerely ask ourselves every morning where the Lord is present and where he needs us to be born again. But I would like to add something more.

12. The Incarnation is the culmination of Creation. God created this world to communicate his love to us, and he did so through the Incarnate Word through whom and for whom everything was created (Cf. Col. 1:16-23). St. Francis contemplates the universe as part of the great mystery of Christ; and in his ‘Canticle of the Creatures’, he beautifully expresses this deep and mystical union, which in turn is the foundation of universal brotherhood.[6] In his last two encyclicals, Pope Francis shares this same basic insight, urging the Christian community and all men and women of good will to care for our relationships with our common home (Laudato Si’), and the relationships of the people who inhabit it (Fratelli tutti). Let us feel prompted by the centennial celebration to share concerns and initiatives with those working for the care of Mother Earth and the defense of the common good. There are already some projects that our brothers have initiated in some parts of the world. For example: the Rainbow Reforestation Project in Indonesia, or the missionary training school project in the Amazon rainforest (a result of the historic Pan-American meeting recently celebrated in São Paulo, Brazil).[7] Let us not tire of promoting an integral ecological spirituality, a field of work that remains vast but befits the nature of our charism.[8]

13. The whole Church (and we with her) is currently in the process of preparing for the synod on synodality. The Church desires to discover even more her roots as the People of God (LG, 4), to incarnate herself and be more alive and present among people. This important ecclesial event, amid the celebration of our centenaries, becomes a great opportunity for making our sentiments of ecclesial belonging stronger and for deepening our ways of relating to one another. In fact, we must never forget that our main mission in the Church is not to do things, but to bear witness to God’s love through our fraternal way of living the Gospel, especially among the least of society. It would then be a firm step forward, beneficial for us and fruitful for the Church, if all fraternities made a greater effort to celebrate local chapters in a more participatory way, giving more space to listening to the Word of God, listening more to each of the brothers, being willing to learn from each other and to improve the quality of our relationships, thinking, discerning and making decisions together, while respecting the various roles each has taken on. Let us ask the Holy Spirit to enlighten us in our commitment to make our personal gifts available to all, so that together we can better collaborate in the Church’s evangelizing mission and be more genuinely at the service of the world.[9]

14. Just as Christ, the incarnate Word of the Father, engaged in a specific culture, it is also up to us to incarnate in our daily lives the values we share and that characterize our identity as lesser brothers. But due to the different cultures in which we find ourselves, what is shared and accepted universally must find different modes of expression. If we want our charism to be incarnated with strength and authenticity, we must continue to strive to translate and adapt our Franciscan thought to the particular situations of each culture. In this area, there is still a long way to go in the Order. Three years have passed since the approval of the Ratio Formationis Ordinis, a strongly charismatic document, which still needs to be further integrated with everyone’s help in the Ratio Formationis Localis, so that the cultural pluralism which is a unique and central trait of our charism is promoted and guaranteed.[10]

IV. Conclusion

15. God is all gift, sheer delivery. He reserves nothing of himself for himself. His expansive dynamism of love is made concrete in the Incarnation, by which, through the Son, the world is filled with God. The Creator, by taking on the nature of his creation, transforms our history into a history of love.

16. Along with this letter, I am sending you a brief aid prepared by the brothers of the General Curia. It is a schematic reflection tool meant to help you enter into the spirit of the centenaries and which can be utilized both at a personal level and at the level of local fraternities; take it as an opportunity for entering more deeply into our charism. And don’t forget to take advantage of working together with the rest of the Franciscan family in the different regional and local areas.

17. May the Lord grant that the eighth centenary of the celebration of the mystery of the Incarnation at Greccio, with the help of the Holy Spirit, make Jesus incarnate in each of us as our true brother, as well as in all our fraternities, that we may finally come to realize and bear to the world our very selves as the children of God that we truly are.

I end this letter on the Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God; may the Lord Jesus, the Son of God who became our brother, and the Immaculate Virgin who became our mother bless and accompany us on our hopeful journey. May the blessing of St. Francis and the graces that come from the ‘centennial’ path we are honored to travel always be with us. And may all heavenly benevolence descend upon you all!

Rome, 01 January 2023
Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God

Br. Roberto Genuin
General Minister OFMCap

  1. Cf. https://www.ofmcap.org/en/notizie/altre-notizie/item/5286-800-anni-della-pasqua-del-serafico-padre ↑
  2. Cf. https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/es/speeches/2022/october/documents/20221031-viiicentenario-francescano.html ↑
  3. Cf. Giovanni Iammarrone, La spiritualità francescana. Anima e contenuti fondamentali, Edizioni Messaggero Padova, 2 ed., Padova 2021. ↑
  4. Cf. St. Francis, A Letter to the Entire Order, 28-29. ↑
  5. Pope Francis, Apostolic Exhortation EVANGELII GAUDIUM, 197-201. ↑
  6. Cf. Ilia Delio, Il Cristo emergente. Il senso cattolico di un universo in continua evoluzione, San Paolo Edizioni, Milano 2014. ↑
  7. My letter, “A Breath of Life” addressed to all the friars in America and to all the friars of the Order, which can be found on our website: https://www.ofmcap.org/en/notizie/altre-notizie/item/5424-un-soffio-di-vita ↑
  8. Cf. Orlando Todisco, Per una nuova presenza nel mondo. La pastorale francescana nel dibattito contemporaneo, Edizioni Biblioteca francescana, Milano 2021. ↑
  9. Cf. https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2021/october/documents/20211009-apertura-camminosinodale.html ↑
  10. Cf. Br. Roberto Genuin, Decree of Promulgation of the Ratio Formationis Ordinis Fratrum Minorum Capuccinorum, Analecta OFMCap 135 (2019) pg. 90. ↑