The Archdiocese of Vienna's website is being regularly updated with texts (in German) of Cardinal Schonborn's homilies and reflections during this Christmas season. What follows below is our translation of the Cardinal's short meditation for 2005 on the Christmas narrative in the gospel of Luke.

"This poor child, born in a stable in Bethlehem, is the great promise, the hope of the world."

The Difficult Christmas

The first Christmas was very difficult. This can be a great consolation for all of us who experience hardships especially on this of all evenings in the year. We hear what Saint Luke has to say about this night, this "most holy night," which is celebrated each year at Christmas:

It was anything but cozy. First, a cumbersome journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, over laborious and dangerous roads, on foot, or at best with a donkey. Mary was far along in her pregnancy. They were not wealthy, could afford no luxuries - there was nothing to ease their travel. Then the hard search in Bethlehem: at first, no place for them, and then only primitive accommodations in one of the stables, which were probably located somewhere around Bethlehem in the numerous caves. Most likely straw served as bedding for the newborn child.

Whoever experiences difficulty in celebrating this holy evening may find comfort in the fact that Mary and Joseph had their own troubles this night, which is so holy to us now. They can feel comforted along with those who would rather be at home on Christmas than in prison, who would rather be with their family than in a strange country as job seekers or refugees. Mary and Joseph are particularly close to those who have lost loved ones this year and must now celebrate Christmas for the first time without them. Indeed I believe that this holy couple, Mary and Joseph, are especially close to those who are experiencing difficulty because this is their first time celebrating this night not as a couple because their marriage, their relationship, has broken.

And what of those who celebrate Christmas amid controversy and discord, or who are even unable to celebrate at all because they can feel no joy? Perhaps it might help them to think, for instance, of the cold weather of the winter night in Bethlehem or the bitter hardships of the holy family.

Perhaps, furthermore, in this case something unusual happens for everyone who has their own difficulties this year on the holy evening, which happened for the first time at that time in Bethlehem since that time happens always in a new way during our own Christmas trials.

Only recently did I notice that in the cave-stable of Bethlehem no angels actually appeared, although angels are often represented in our Krippen [Manger Scenes]. It is in the fields, and not in the stable, that they appear. It is the shepherds, not Mary and Joseph, who see the angelic host and hear "Glory to God..."

The shepherds - who were also poor like the holy family in the stable - were holding watch over their flocks. Amid the radiance, angels told them what had already happened that great night close by: a child had come into the world, and this child is the Savior, the Messiah, the Christ, the desired Redeemer.

They immediately set out on their way and found "Mary and Joseph and the child, lying in a manger." They saw the harsh adversity as well as the newborn child. No angels, no heavenly radiance. However, the shepherds spoke about those things that they had heard about the child. And they believed: "This poor child is the great promise, the hope of the world."

I wish us all to be such "shepherds," ones who say to those experiencing hardships at Christmas: "Behold, in the midst of difficulty there is also the light of hope." Christ, after all, comes straight to that place where hardship particularly oppresses. So even a laborious Christmas can still be a celebration of quiet joy.

"Natus est vobis hodie Salvator, qui est Christus Dominus, in civitate David." (Luke 2:11). All of us at CardinalSchonborn.com wish you a happy and blessed Christmas!