Christmas should make us more humane, says Spanish cardinal

Barcelona, Spain, Dec 20, 2010 / 16:09 pm

Cardinal Lluis Martinez Sistach of Barcelona, Spain noted Dec. 19 that Christmas “must make us all more humane.”  He explained that the season should bring Catholics to become “more united to those suffering from hunger and thirst, with the sick and the poor.”

The message of Christmas “is profoundly human,” the cardinal said, as “the vocation of every human being is above all love—love received and love given.”

Only in the experience of love “can man find the deepest meaning of his life,” he continued.  Christmas “teaches us above all that God is not man’s antagonist, but rather his friend.”

He went on to explain that during the Pope's recent visit to Spain, he stressed that Christmas is about “globalizing love.”  “It is a feast of solidarity, as it is the manifestation of a God who is in solidarity with the world,” the Spanish cardinal said.

During the Pope’s visit to Santiago de Compostela on Nov. 6, he continued, the Pontiff exhorted Catholics to “embrace their brothers and sisters and discover in them the divine image and likeness, which constitutes the deepest truth of their beings and is the origin of genuine freedom.”

Cardinal Sistach ended his letter underscoring that a “Christmas of solidarity” demands Catholics draw close to those who are suffering, “especially during these difficult economic times.”