Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example that we should follow, and I think what the Church has always understood that to mean is, we should suffer for other people as well, in imitation of Christ, and in that we will find our ultimate happiness and fulfillment.

We pray, too, today, in a very special way, for our world and for the Church, which are beset by so much confusion and error, by violence and death. And we ask Our Lord, in a particular way, to come to our aid. We have probably never been more conscious of the fact of how powerless we are on our own to do anything about the situation in the Church and in the world. But we know that, if we remain faithful in doing all that we can, that it is God who will accomplish the victory of the life, the victory of the joy and peace of His birth at Bethlehem.

Our Saviour, dearly Beloved, was born this day. Let us rejoice. Sadness is not becoming upon the Birth Day of Life Itself, which, now that the fear of death is ended, fills us with gladness, because of our own promised immortality. No one is excluded from sharing in this cheerfulness, for the reason of our joy is common to all men. Our Lord, the Conqueror of sin and death, since there was no one free from servitude, came that He might bring deliverance to all.