Looking at the Nativity Scene, I see God in the smallness of a child lying in a humble manger: this is the great wonder of Christmas. While man wants to go up, command, and accumulate goods, God wants to go down, serve, and give. He brings a new order to things and to hearts. “Every child wants to be a man., Every man wants to be a king, and every king wants to be a ‘god’. Only God wants to be a child” (L. Boff).
At Christmas, we don’t celebrate a memory but a prophecy. That night, the meaning of things took on a new direction: history begins again from the margins of smallness, where all human suffering lies and all its dreams.

This Christmas, I’m talking to you about the Angra Prison, a place, a large house, or perhaps a manger that symbolizes, for many, silence, punishment, pain, and repentance. This place tells us that our choices have consequences. But it is also a place where, if we allow it, God comes down to meet and touch everyone with his boundless love, helping them to overcome despair and start again.
The story goes that Winston Churchill, at the end of the Second World War, returned to his school in Harrow, where he gave a short speech summed up in four words: “Never, never, never give up.”
So, don’t give up! Never give up! Don’t give in to discouragement. Even when everything seems to be falling apart. Beyond every story and every mistake or failure, life is always a gift; it deserves to be lived with dignity and celebrated, even if deprived of freedom. Every night gives way to day, just as every night in life is invariably followed by a new day, a light of hope that will make us better.

Let’s look at Bethlehem: There, Mary “gave birth to her firstborn son, wrapped him in cloths and laid him in a manger” (Lk 2:7). It was the animals’ manger that Mary, in her need, saw as a cradle. And that was enough. Jesus was born surrounded by difficulties, poverty, and rejection. Just as in Bethlehem, he continues to be born in the least expected places: in hearts wounded by hatred or exclusion, in situations of war, sickness, suffering, and, yes, even behind bars.
“In the same region were some shepherds.” They were already there. It is as if I am waiting for something, watching every noise at night, full of hope for something big. Wonderful news for the poor, the last, the anonymous, the forgotten, and those without freedom. God restarted history 2024 years ago, starting with them with joyful news: don’t be afraid! God must never cause fear; otherwise, he won’t be the one knocking at your door or at your hut. God enters the world from the lowest point so that no creature is excluded from his healing embrace. “God became man to learn to weep” for and with us (D. M. Turoldo). God knows our name because we are his beloved children. He never gives up on us. St. Paul said: “Where sin abounded, grace abounded.” (Romans 5:20)

Yesterday, we entered the Jubilee of Hope. The Pope opened the first Holy Door in St. Peter’s Basilica, and tomorrow, for the first time in the 724-year history of the Church’s jubilees, he will open a Holy Door in a Roman prison of Rebibbia.
In four days, the Jubilee will also begin in our diocese, as in every diocese worldwide. This is an invitation to all of us to look beyond our mistakes and failures and seize the opportunity to start again. The hope of Christmas tells us that we are worth not for what we have been, but for what we are and what we dream of being.
I would like to be able to embrace each and every one of those who are deprived of their freedom, here in this prison and in all the others, to embrace those in charge, the prison guards and the service staff, and tell them: the humanity of Jesus tells us that it is possible to humanize all environments, to serve each and every life.

5. The Child God is born! He is the hope that does not disappoint. I extend my most sincere wishes of peace, joy, and hope to every woman and man, especially those prostrated by their existential condition.
Christmas is God’s greatest faith in humanity: he entrusted his son to an inexperienced girl to care for him and feed him with milk, caresses, and dreams. In the same way, God will only come to earth if we care for him daily, like a mother.
I end by praying to him:

My child God, poor as love, small as a child, humble as the straw on which you rest,
my little God who is learning to live this earthly life of ours,
my little God, incapable of aggression and harm,
teach me that there is no other meaning for us, no other destiny than to become like you.

A Holy and Merry Christmas to everyone: Let’s face 2025 together, walking together in the hope of achieving a future of peace, love, and freedom.
Heaven has already opened, the Savior has come down, and dreams have become possible because nothing is impossible for God. Happy Holidays.

Armando Esteves Domingues, Bishop of Angra and the Diocese of the Azores.

Translated to English as a community outreach program from the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI) and the Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures Department (MCLL) as part of Bruma Publication and ADMA (Azores-Diaspora Media Alliance) at California State University, Fresno, PBBI thanks Luso Financial for sponsoring NOVIDADES.