{"id":342564,"date":"2013-12-02T06:00:29","date_gmt":"2013-12-02T05:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/making-jesus-the-reason-for-the-season\/"},"modified":"2024-06-06T12:11:08","modified_gmt":"2024-06-06T10:11:08","slug":"making-jesus-the-reason-for-the-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/making-jesus-the-reason-for-the-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Making Jesus the Reason for the Season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img alt=\"\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-97044 alignleft\" style=\"margin-right: 10px\" src=\"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/20131202-02.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"286\" height=\"215\" \/><strong>\u201cChristmas is drawing near and the streets are covered in light.<\/strong> . .\u201d These are the opening words of<a href=\"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/chiara-lubich\/chi-e-chiara\/\"> Chiara Lubich\u2019s<\/a> message &#8220;<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/C.Lubich_JesusIsLeftOut1980.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">They have dislodged Jesus!\u201d<\/a><\/em>&#8220;, describing a day near Christmas as she drove through the streets of a large fashionable city. She was so struck by the exterior scene that grabbed her attention at every corner: \u201cA never-ending row of shops, an endless but exorbitant wealth.\u201d Struck by the gentle and gracious Christmas atmosphere, Chiara was equally stunned by the total absence of its deeper true meaning: \u201cThe disbelief that overcame my heart nearly turned to rebellion\u201d she writes. \u201cThis rich and exorbitant world has lassoed Christmas and everything surrounding it and forced Jesus out! It loves the poetry, the atmosphere; the friendship it brings; the gifts it suggests, the lights, stars and songs. It focuses on Christmas for the best sales of the year. But for Jesus: not even a thought.  \u2018He came among his own, but his own did not receive him. . .\u2019 \u2018There was no place for him at the inn. . .\u2019 not even at Christmas. Last night I couldn\u2019t sleep. This thought kept we awake the whole night.\u201d Chiara confided that she would have liked to do something that would highlight and convey Christmas\u2019s <em>great mystery of love. <\/em>\u201cThat at least in our homes,\u201d she hoped \u201cwe would cry out the One who was born, celebrating Him as He had never been celebrated before.\u201d  <img alt=\"\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright  wp-image-97043\" style=\"margin-left: 10px\" src=\"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/20131202-03.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"269\" height=\"202\" \/>For several years now the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/bambini\/\">children <\/a>who live the spirituality of unity have been taking on Chiara\u2019s dream, bringing Baby Jesus back to the centre of Christmas. They do it with songs, small hand-made painted statues and Nativity scenes; also collecting offerings for the suffering and poverty of other children. This year they will support their peers in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/focolare-worldwide\/asia\/filippine\/\">Philippines <\/a>and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/focolare-worldwide\/asia\/siria\/\">Syria<\/a>.  Anyone wishing to join in can download a poster illustrating the Baby Jesus Project at:<a title=\"Gen 4 website\" href=\"http:\/\/ gen4.focolare.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> gen4.focolare.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Once again children of the Focolare Movement around the world launch their  Baby Jesus Project  inspired by a Christmas message written by Chiara Lubich<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-342564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-categorizzato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342564\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}