Like a father or a mother, God "becomes small" to be closer to us. We can hear what he says but also how he says it. We must do what the Lord does, do what he says and do it how he says, i.e. "with love, with tenderness, [and] with that condescension towards the brethren."

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - "Normally, Christmas seems to be a very noisy holiday," said Pope Francis in the homily he pronounced during the Mass he celebrated in the Domus Sanctae Marthae. Yet, "it would do us good," he added, to prepare for Christ's birth with "a little silence" to hear the Lord's words of "nearness" and "tenderness" as he made himself "small" in order to "draw near" us. We should do this not for so much what the Lord says but for how he says it, the way a father and a mother speak to their child.

The Pope, Vatican Radio reports, inspired by the reading from the prophet Isaiah said: "When the child has a bad dream, he wakes up, cries . . . the father goes and says, 'Don't be afraid, don't be afraid, I'm here.' That's how the Lord speaks to us. 'Do not fear, you worm Jacob, you maggot Israel'. The Lord has this way of speaking to us: He is near . . . When we look at a father or a mother who speaks to their little child, we see that they become little and speak with the voice of a child and with the manners of children. Someone looking in from the outside might think, 'This is ridiculous!' They become smaller, right there, don't they? Because the love of a father and a mother needs to be close. I say this word: to lower themselves to the world of the child. . . . If the father and mother spoke to them normally, the child would still understand; but they want to speak like the child. They come close, become children. And so it is with the Lord."

"Hence, the father and the mother also say ridiculous things to the child: 'Ah, my love, my toy . . .' and all these things. And the Lord says this too, 'you worm Jacob,' 'you are like a worm to me, a tiny little thing, but I love you so much.' This is the language of the Lord, the language of the love of a father, of a mother. The word of the Lord? Yes, we understand what He tells us. But we also see how He says it. And we must do what the Lord does, do what He says and do it as He says it: with love, with tenderness, with that condescension towards the brethren."

"God," Pope Francis said, citing Elijah's encounter with God, is like "a sweet breeze", or, as the original text says, "a sound of silence". That is how the Lord draws near, with that resonance of silence that is proper to love. Without making a spectacle." And "He becomes small in order to make me strong; He goes to death, with that condescendence, so that I might live".

 "This is the music of the language of the Lord, and we, in the preparation for Christmas, ought to hear it: it would do us so much good. Normally, Christmas seems to be a very noisy holiday: it would do us good to have a little silence and hear these words of love, these words of such nearness, these words of tenderness . . . 'You are a worm, but I love you so much.' [Let us pray] for this, and be silent in this time in which, as the preface says, we are watchful in waiting."

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