Verbum caro (hic) factum est

Fr. Livio Tonello, director

Saying that it is already Christmas is an obvious statement, linked to the time that seems to flow fast. That’s why I start in August, as a joke, to say that “now it’s Christmas” and that you have to think about the crib. And when I wrote these lines, to comply with printing requirements, it was still hot. It is not easy to identify with an event that will happen later. But is it easier to think about what happened 2000 years ago? “The Word became flesh” yesterday, as if it were today. In the basilica of Nazareth, where historically tradition identifies the place where Mary receives from the angel the announcement of the birth of the Savior, there is an inscription in Latin: Et verbum caro (hic) factum est. Compared to the passage in John’s Gospel (chap. 1:14) there is the addition of hic (here). Yes, “here”, right here the son of God became flesh, he became man in the womb of Mary. That adverb is also valid for us today. We can say “here and today” Jesus was born: in every place and in every time. Because his birth has a universal value that crosses space and time.…