December 24, 2025
Advent Feria
Fr. Francesco Ielpo, Custos of the Holy Land
May the Lord give you peace. I am fr. Francesco Ielpo, Custos of the Holy Land.
The Gospel of this last day of Advent presents to us the song of Zechariah, the Benedictus, a hymn of praise and hope that prepares us for the mystery of Christmas. It is a song that is born from a long waiting, from the silence of a man who has learned to believe, and who now, on the eve of the birth of the Savior, bursts forth in a song full of gratitude.
In this canticle three great themes of our faith resound: the faithfulness of God, salvation, and the universality of His love.
First of all, a faithful God: “Blessed be the Lord, for He has visited and redeemed His people… as He had promised through the mouth of the prophets… He has remembered His covenant.”
God remembers. God’s memory is not like ours, fragile and intermittent. God’s memory is faithfulness: He never forgets His promises.
The Christmas that we will contemplate in a few hours is the sign that God keeps the word given: He has visited His people, He has shown His tenderness. Zechariah speaks of a “tender goodness of our God” – an expression that in Hebrew evokes the visceral love of a mother. Christmas is the proof that God is not distant nor distracted, but near, compassionate, faithful.
The song of Zechariah, then, speaks powerfully of salvation. The salvation that God gives is not abstract nor only spiritual: it is concrete, it touches history. It is liberation from fear, from slavery, from oppression, but also from the sin that imprisons us within. The Gospel reminds us that salvation is not only a “liberation from,” but also a “liberation for”: “that we may serve Him in holiness and righteousness before Him all our days.”
God sets us free in order to restore us to ourselves, to make us His collaborators, to make us capable of loving. This is why Christmas is not only a feast of light and sweetness, but a call to renew our lives, to ensure that the freedom given by God becomes responsibility, mission, service.
Zechariah then announces that his son John will prepare the way of the Lord, but the light that is about to rise is for all peoples. Christmas is a light that knows no boundaries.
That “rising sun” is Christ Himself: He illumines the people of Israel, but also the pagans; He warms the righteous and the sinners; He enters the darkness of the world and of the human heart.
In a Christmas like this, where so many shadows seem to cover the Holy Land and the whole world – wars, fear, divisions – this word resounds as promise and consolation: the true light still comes.
It is the Lord who continues to rise where humanity feels lost, where violence has darkened hope, where faith seems to be extinguished.
Then we too, like Zechariah, can sing with gratitude: “Blessed be the Lord, for He has visited and redeemed His people.”
Peace and all good from the Holy Land.
