SOUTH AMERICAN DIOCESE: January 12, 2022
Nativity Epistle of Bishop John of Caracas and South America

But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons (Gal. 4. 4-5).

The One awaited of the ages has come and enlightened the world! The pre-eternal God has become incarnate from the most pure Virgin! Christ is born! God is with us!

This is the most glorious moment of the entirety of human existence, it is what all humanity, right from Adam himself, has been awaiting, that to which all the prophets have pointed. It is not just another spiritual teacher, or moral preceptor, or the latest prophet, or a thinker or preacher, such as history has already seen, that is born, but rather it is the Saviour, the Son of God Himself.

That the Lord God Himself has taken on a human nature, is a turning point in the whole tragic history of fallen humanity. That the Lord God Himself partakes fully of humanity, is the culmination of the whole sacred history of God's revelation to mankind.

If before the Birth of Christ, the coming of the Messiah was a distant beacon of light to which fallen humanity could turn all its yearnings and expectations, which gave hope, direction and purpose to our existance in this vale of tears, then, the Incarnation of the Son of God has now become an immutable and eternal reality, which we as Christians are called to live, and thus become partakers of heavenly life and heirs of God. Through it, from the depths of our nothingness, we are called to rise into the infinite and eternal, for which we were first created. In it the fleeting instant of our existence can touch eternity. In it our troubled soul can find peace and rest.

May Christ the pre-eternal Wisdom and Word of God, the Creator of all, who is now born of the All-Pure Virgin, enlightening the whole world, enlighten also our hearts and minds with the light of His glorious Theophany!

Christ is Born! Glorify Him!

John, Bishop of Caracas and South America