Luke 1,67-79 – Birth of the Lord – (Evening Mass on the Vigil – Solemnity)
In Zechariah’s Benedictus it is there the deep breath of a man who finally sees what he has only hoped for for years. It’s as if his heart, which had been silent for too long, found the right words on Christmas Eve, when the whole sky seems to be holding its breath. Zechariah does not simply celebrate the birth of his son: celebrate a God who keeps promises even when we stop believing it.
His praise comes from the fact that God did not get tired of man, he did not give in to our inconsistency, but decided to visit us again, to set out towards us. It speaks of a “light rising from above,” and it is It’s hard not to feel the light of Christmas in this image. A light that does not dazzle, but orients; it does not crush, but consoles. A light that enters our nights without judging the darkness, but promising a dawn. And then there is John, the newborn son, called to prepare for this coming. But the truth, on Christmas Eve, is that each of us has a similar mission: to become a voice, a path, a possibility.
Preparing the heart means allowing God’s mercy to reach what we have buried, what we think is irremediable. Mercy is the key to Zechariah’s song: it is not a vague feeling, it is a real intervention of God in our fragility. “Direct our steps on the path to peace”. Here is the desire that accompanies us in the last hours before Christmas. Not a peace made of the absence of problems, of fatigue, of tensions, but a peace that is born from the presence: that of God who walks beside us. The peace of Christmas is not magic, it is company. God is here a few steps away from us, and nothing will ever be the same again.
