'When the fullness of time had come' (Gal 4,4). Time, in its unfolding,
is directed to this moment. From the beginning. From eternity, in the mind
of the Father. From the time when the Lord created the universe; from the
time when the earth became a privileged garden for the man, raised to a
particular communion with God; from the time when, due to the fall of the
first parents, even creation itself became subjected to frailty and the
earth began to produce thorns and thistles to man, now subjected to bitter
trials and continuous sufferings.
'I will put enmity between you and the Woman; between your offspring and
hers. He will crush your head.' My offspring is the divine Child who is
born of me on this Holy Night. It is He who is the conqueror of Satan,
because He is the Incarnate Word of the Father, the sole Mediator between
God and humanity, the one and only Savior and Redeemer.
By means of Him, the plan of the Father is reinstated as it was in the
beginning. Man once again reflects the glory of the living God, and all the
universe is wonderously ordained to proclaim the perfect glory of its Lord.
'God sent forth his Son' (Gal 4,4). This Holy Night is a response to the
profound aspirations of all those who have lived in the hope and the
prayerful expectation of this moment. It is the fullness of time because it
condenses within itself the ardent expectation of all history: of Adam, of
Abraham, of the patriarchs and the prophets, of the kings and the priests,
of the great and the small. For how many centuries these just ones of
Israel have lived, invoking, hoping for and awaiting this moment.
'God sent forth his Son.' He is the Word consubstantial with the Father.
He is the Image of his substance. He is the Splendor of his glory who, on
this night, is born in his human life.
'Born of a Woman' (Gal 4,4). He is born of me, his Virgin Mother. Live
with me the ecstasy of these hours. Enter into my Immaculate Heart to savor
all the intensity of this moment, when time reaches its fullness. You are
in the heart of history. Here you can understand all the events of the
past. Here you can give sense and significance to all the events of the
future.
This night becomes a fount of Light for humanity of all times. Because the
Son who is born of me, on this Holy Night, is God-with-you, is Emmanuel, is
your Redeemer, is your one and only Savior.
Enter then with joy into the mystery of this Night. And open your hearts
to the fullness of the blessedness which comes to you with the fullness of
time: 'I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the
people; for to you is born this day a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.'
In the mystery of this Night, understand also how the fullness of time is
accomplished in the new time which awaits you, because this first coming of
Jesus in the frailty of his human nature is directed toward his second
coming, when He will appear in the splendor of his divine glory. In this
first Christmas, his divinity is obscured and hidden by his humanity; in
his second birth, the humanity will be veiled over by the spendor of his
divinity.
Enter then into the mystery of this Night, to open your hearts to hope.
Today I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the
people. The Lord Jesus, whom you are contemplating this night in the manger,
, small and frail, weeping and totally destitute, is about to return in the
splendor of his divine glory.
This, his glorious return, will bring to fulfillment the fullness of time,
when He will initiate the new time of the new heavens and the new earth."
Return to 1994 Messages