Humility........

Entrance to Basilica of the Nativity, Bethlehem. Oct 2011

 "Today, anyone wishing to enter the Church of Jesus’ Nativity in Bethlehem will find… only a low opening…to prevent people from entering God’s house on horseback. Anyone wishing to enter the place of Jesus’ birth has to bend down…

if we ...want to find the God who appeared as a child, then we must dismount from the high horse of our “enlightened” reason… set aside our false certainties, our intellectual pride, which prevents us from recognizing God’s closeness…We must bend down, spiritually we must as it were go on foot, in order to pass through the portal of faith and encounter the God who is so different from our prejudices and opinions – the God who conceals himself in the humility of a newborn baby.

In this spirit, let us strip away our fixation on what is material, on what can be measured and grasped. Let us allow ourselves to be made simple by the God who reveals himself to the simple of heart…"

-Benedict XVI