On this holy night together with the whole Church, we render our homage to the Son of God who is born in Bethlehem. Together with the whole Church, we welcome him with joy, singing: "Christ our Savior is born for us!"

The Son of God, who is coeternal with the Father, became man. As a citizen of the earth, his birth was registered right at the beginning of his life. In the history of the earth, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, received his citizenship as the Son of Mary, wife of Joseph. The gospel reading for today's liturgy reminds us of this.

Today, in an age when God is denied a place on earth, it should not be forgotten that he was listed among its inhabitants and assumed the nationality that would for the centuries to come be linked to the name of Jesus Christ.

He was born in the modest village of Bethlehem. Mary, wife of Joseph, had looked for a room in some inn where she could give birth, but in vain. God would be born in a nearby cave which was used as a stable, so that the Son of God would assume his human citizenship in a stable!

In the present age, in which God is denied citizenship among the inhabitants of our land and is refused a proper place in which to be born, we prepare a shed, a stable, a shelter in which he can come into the world, and when we gather together here we feel stronger because it seems to be the most similar place to where he was born.

Here we cradle our hopes: if God chose to be born in a stable and to assume his earthly citizenship there, then his birth among us under the open sky is the extension and authentic reenactment of that first birth.

This is how we twentieth-century Christians welcome Jesus Christ, the Son of God. This is how you, my dear brothers and sisters of this parish in the Krzeslawice hills, and I, Archbishop of Krakow, welcome him. I do not welcome him in the cathedral, but here with you in the authentic place of his birth, which throbs with the hope that he may be born for the future, for our future life, for the generations to come, for the next millennium. This is because it is here that we find that living faith, looked for in vain in the houses of Bethlehem but given him by shepherds in a stable.

In a few moments I shall take into my hands bread that will be very similar to the bread you broke and divided among you at your Christmas Eve supper. This bread and the wine that I shall take from your hands will be transformed, through the power of the words of consecration, into the Body and Blood of the Son of God. May he be born again at midnight from our bread and wine; from our love, faith, and community; from the good wishes we exchange; from our aspirations; and from the undeniably just request finally to be permitted to build a house for God here.

It is from all of this, under the form of bread and wine, that Jesus Christ will be born. We shall welcome him, as always, with faith and veneration, with hymns on our lips and with love in our hearts. We shall welcome him into our souls in order to live the life that he brings us. Even though he was born in a poor cave, he did not come empty-handed. He brought us, as he always will, the greatest gift of all - that of sharing his divinity, his condition as Son of God, with us. He makes us children of God, raising us up above ourselves and filling us with the gifts that God alone can give us.

All this will take place, my dear brothers and sisters, my dear brother priests, through the offering of the bread which, as I have said, is so similar to the Christmas bread that you have broken and shared with one another in your homes. Here too we shall break and share bread, thus testifying to our faith in God's goodness and in the reality of his nearness and presence. May this faith pervade our whole life, both private, family and social, in this great modern industrialized Nowa Huta area of Krakow.

I join my best wishes, my dear brothers and sisters, to those you have already exchanged with one another and to the much greater one of the whole community that you may at last have a house in which Christ can be born. May he who has for centuries been listed and registered in this country be recognized as a citizen who, like others, has the right to a home.

24 December 1976

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The Virgin who was about to give birth to her Son certainly deserved to have a roof over her head and a room in which to give birth. We cannot but feel that she should have had this; we feel that it is a basic human right, or a sort of law of nature, for a woman in childbirth to have a shelter. But no roof was found for her. There was no room for you when you came into the world. The only place to be found was a stable in a cave just outside the town of Bethlehem.

When we gather together in this place, we see again the Bethlehem cave in which the Son of God came into the world and was born of the Virgin Mary. When we come here to the Son of God, the newborn Christ, we find a remarkable similarity between this place and the Bethlehem shelter. Here too, for many years there has been no place for you, no roof under which to shelter you. But all of us, and with us Poland and the whole world, felt that a place must be found because people have the right to a roof when the desire to meet with God is born in their souls. This was the opinion of everybody in Poland, in Krakow, and in Nowa Huta.

I am speaking here in the perspective of two factors: first, that of the years I have lived here, and, secondly, that of recently having visited our fellow Poles across the Atlantic, where people know about your parish and feel it is of common interest to them too. This common interest has a special meaning. Today God who is born in human souls, just as he was born in Bethlehem long ago, should have a roof and a home. This is a human right and a law of nature. Other man-made laws must be subordinated to human rights and natural laws. It was an offense to God when no house, and not even a proper shelter, was found for him in Bethlehem, so that he had to be born in a stable in a cave.

The situation here is very eloquent; it is a moving symbol for us - and also for others as well. This is why we come each year to the place where this parallel is so clear, in order to greet Christ as he comes at midnight on Christmas Eve, to kneel before him in this particular spot which reminds us so strongly of that first Christmas despite the centuries which have passed.

As is the case each year, you have come here straight from your homes or your work in order to share the host in the great family of the parish. I am most sincerely grateful to you for the wishes that I have received from many quarters, and I should like to express my thanks to the clergy, religious sisters, and other members of the parish.

In turn I want to give you my best wishes and to call down the divine blessing on you, on each home, and on all those (whom I especially respect and admire) who perform heavy labor, on the sick, on the disenfranchised and disinherited, on parents, children, and young people - indeed, on the whole parish. This is how I want to return your good wishes to me.

Then, my dear brothers and sisters, let us in turn extend them to others from this Nowa Huta crib and eucharistic altar. My mind turns to all our fellow Poles across the ocean in Canada and the United States who have done so much for us. Let us try to wipe out the thousands of miles between us and them and invite them to this eucharistic table to share the host with us.

Let me also invite here today all the dioceses and parishes of Poland. And, since I have recently taken part in the synod of bishops in Rome, let me invite here the bishops or "shepherds" of all the different countries, continents and races in the world. In this night, we have but one heart, one faith, and one sentiment. One single heart beats in us for the God who is born and whose birth we celebrate each year, so that we too, through him, may become children of God.

This, my dear ones, is the great and universal community of all Christians, of the whole Church, of all of us who on this night live once again the birth of God into this world. We break and share bread, exchanging the same wishes as those expressed by the angels that night in Bethlehem: "Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth to men of goodwill."

Tonight we are all of us overwhelmed and dumbfounded in the face of the divine love which took on human flesh and entered into the human spirit. We compare our miserable human love with his immeasurable love, and we pray that love may grow within us, that it may never be extinguished despite any difficulties or obstacles, and that it may never dim but always grow stronger.

May it never dim or fail, particularly in our families, in our marriages, and in relations between children and parents and between old and young. May it never fail in this Christian country. May it grow ever stronger within our society and withstand every effort to undermine or destroy it.

These are our wishes as we gather at this eucharistic table on which in a few moments, as at every Mass, Christ will be born to become our bread and to nourish us. Let us say to him today: "Welcome! Come to us, be our nourishment, and teach us to love."
This is our prayer, my dear brothers and sisters, and this our cry on this Christmas night in the year of Our Lord 1969. Together with the Holy Father and the whole Church, let us place it at the feet of Christ, who is about to be born of the Virgin Mother in this our Bethlehem.

24 December 1969

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"In the silence of the night a voice rings out." In the silence of the night a voice echoed across the fields near Bethlehem, linking the glory of God in heaven with the peace of men on earth. The same voice later spread out from the countryside around Bethlehem to more and more places throughout the world, and today it echoes in the silence of Christmas night in every continent of the world.

The same voice has rung out for over a thousand years in Poland, here in Krakow, and in our other historical churches. And in a special way this Christmas voice, the voice of the midnight Mass, rings out in this place to which Christians come, like the Bethlehem shepherds long ago, to gather around the crib. They come to this place that so clearly reminds us of the shelter in which God came into the world because he could not find a proper roof.

"In the silence of the night a voice rings out, 'Rise up, shepherds, God is being born.'" And then it adds, "Run with all speed to Bethlehem."

Bethlehem was a small town in Palestine that became famous as the birthplace of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and the name means "house of bread." Today, and especially tonight, the whole of our country is transformed into one great "house of bread." In the course of supper in many homes, our fellow Poles have broken bread and shared it with one another. We too have done this, exchanging our good wishes, not only in the homes of our parish but also here before the celebration of midnight Mass. I should like to thank you and to offer you my warmest good wishes in return.

My wishes are for your own deepest desires, and concern the worries, problems, noble aspirations, and preoccupations of all who live here. They are also specifically concerned with this place and the wholehearted wish that a house of bread, or Bethlehem, may be built here among these huge modern structures - a house to which people can come to feed on the bread which is the Body of Christ and gives eternal life, a real house of bread for those who live in this area and not simply a wretched roofless spot. You and I are all doing everything we can and making every possible effort to bring this about. What have we achieved so far? We have not received any official permission. However, as we were assured by the regional authorities in Krakow at their last meeting with your bishop, there is widespread agreement that a church will be built in this neighborhood.

We can see this as a reward for our perseverance. However, it is only a beginning, and we shall bring this matter up again, pointing out that the local authorities have given their word in this regard. We shall thus try to make sure that this promise is kept, so that all of us who live in this area can have our own house of bread where Christ can be born in a properly protected place.

These are my wishes for the whole parish and community, your clergy, religious sisters, young people, children, parents, the sick - indeed, all of you.

The same Christmas carol that sings of the angel's call to the shepherds to go to Bethlehem continues: "They went and found the Child lying in the manger." With these words in mind I want to express an even deeper wish than those of a few moments ago. I hope that all those who live in the area around this pastoral center dedicated to Blessed Queen Hedwig may come and find Christ; and this wish applies to every single person, not just to those who are here and have thus already found Christ but also to those who for various reasons are not here with us - because they do not believe they can find him or because they have lost him or because they are afraid. The reason makes no difference. I wish that all of them may find Christ, because he is the Savior of the world.

These are the wishes I want to offer you, my dear brothers and sisters, at this Christmas Eucharist. I would ask you to welcome them into your hearts, take them back home with you, and live in harmony with them. In the same way, I too shall find new life in the wishes you have offered me today in the name of your community.

May this Christmas that we are celebrating increase the birth and presence of God in your souls and in all souls, in the soul of the whole nation, which prays to the infant Jesus: "Raise your little hand, O Holy Child, and bless our beloved homeland."

This is our prayer on Christmas Eve at the close of the Holy Year of 1975 and at the beginning of the last quarter century of the second millennium after Christ. We pray to him, as our ancestors have prayed to him for many centuries: "Raise your little hand, O Holy Child, and bless our beloved homeland."

24 December 1975