What if God is asking you—your family, your parish, your school, your community—to make room for Christ this Christmas in the very places where creation is most at risk?
Advent always begins with a question: Are we awake? Not only spiritually, but socially, environmentally, and morally. The Gospel urges us to stay alert, to notice where life is fragile, where hope is threatened, where God is quietly asking for a home.
This year, that question lands differently. We see communities displaced by fires and floods, young people anxious about the future of the planet, and ecosystems struggling to breathe. And yet, the God we await does not arrive in control or certainty, but as a newborn—utterly dependent, vulnerable, entrusted to human care.
If the Incarnation took place today, would we recognize it?
Would we make room?
Or would we be too busy, too overwhelmed, or too resigned to notice the light breaking in?
The manger teaches us something essential: salvation begins in the smallest, most overlooked places. In a wooden trough. During a quiet night. In a patch of creation that became holy simply because Christ chose to dwell there.
So we ask ourselves and each other:
- Where are the “mangers” in our lives and institutions that need clearing out to welcome new life?
- What habits, structures, or comforts keep us from living the ecological conversion we profess?
- What courageous step—small but real—might God be inviting us to take this season?
Christmas is daring. It tells us that God enters our world not to decorate it, but to transform it. The light that shines in Bethlehem is meant to shine through us—through our choices, our relationships, our institutions, our witness.
As a global effort behind the Laudato Si’ Action Platform, we walk this path together. And so we ask, humbly and honestly:
What kind of Church are we becoming through the way we care for our common home?
May this Advent awaken our imagination.
May this Christmas strengthen our courage.
And may the Christ who comes in vulnerability teach us how to love boldly, concretely, and with renewed hope for the Earth we share.
With gratitude and prayer,
The Laudato Si’ Action Platform Team
Featured photo: “Mass in St Jerome’s Cave in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem” by Catholic Church England and Wales, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0