The Feast of the Nativity

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Dear beloved brethren,

As we honor the Feast of the Glorious Nativity and the Birth of the Christ Child, we must honor all that the feast encompasses. It is a birth of newness, a birth of a new peace, a birth of a new love through salvation, and a new birth born of love through the likeness of man through the Incarnation.

As we read in the Divine Liturgy of St. Gregory the Theologian: "no manner of speech can measure the depth of Your love to mankind." This can surely be applied to the Incarnation, the Lord Jesus Christ reconciling us to the Father though the Holy Nativity. God loved us before the creation of the world, before our being, and through the Holy Nativity, we become His children with His Only Son.

With the plague of the recent ongoing persecutions in Egypt upon our brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ, it is difficult for peace to easily come upon us, but it must. Just as King Herod sought out to kill the Christ Child, the times of persecution have not changed, only the methodology. Sharing the difficulties of the families who have lost someone in an attack upon Coptic Christian communities in our midst or bearing their afflictions by helping to care for their injured shows a new love through salvation. In sharing the suffering of another Coptic Christian, we show the same love to them that the Lord Jesus Christ shows to us through His Holy Incarnation.

In His holy message to the angel of the church of Ephesus the Lord Jesus Christ said, "I know your works, your labor, your patience...and you have persevered and have patience, and have labored for My name's sake and have not become weary" (Revelation 2:2-3).

The Lord Jesus Christ came to earth to conform the heart of man, to win his total love. This is why it is called the newness of love in general, love of peace forsaking the worldly, love seeking a life everlasting, and a new reconciled love, the birth of man through humility.

St. Augustine said, "Where love is, there is peace, and where humility is, we find love."

May the Lord God of peace be with us all. Let us all remember as St. Paul taught the Ephesians (3:19) that God's love passes knowledge; it cannot be measured and is unchangeable. This lasting love opens the Paradise of Joy where martyrs go and peace abides.

Bishop Youssef
Bishop, Coptic Orthodox Diocese of the Southern United States