There are only 10 days left before Christmas and finding ourselves in the earth of the Advent Season, we prepare ourselves to welcome once more the "Lord who comes". I wish that you, along with your families and your communities live with joy and peace this day in which Christianity celebrates a triple birth, from which every Christian should receive great happiness and interior joy:

"The first birth and the most sublime, is that whereby the Heavenly Father begets His only Son in the Divine essence, and in the distinction of the Divine persons. The second birth is that which made Mary a mother in virginity most pure and inviolate. The third is that by which every day and every hour God is truly and spiritually begotten in our souls by grace and love" (Blessed John Tauler, Sermon 12).

Precisely, in order to help with this birth in the good hearts of those you know, collaborate or work within your charitable or volunteering activities, it is our pleasure to enclose with these wishes for a happy and holy Christmas, the speech that the Holy Father addressed to us in private audience on the 11th of November 2011 at the Vatican on the occasion of the closing of the encounter "The Pope and European Volunteers". My hope and wish is that you circulate this speech within your organizations in order to reach the greatest number of persons possible. From this, they can draw a point of reflection on the good that they are doing with their volunteering commitment at the service of their neighbors.

 

 

ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI TO PARTICIPANTS IN THE MEETING

PROMOTED BY THE PONTIFICAL COUNCIL "COR UNUM"

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2011/november/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20111111_cor-unum_en.html