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To the Most Reverend and Reverend Hierarchs,
Most Reverend and Reverend Fathers,
Honored Monks and Nuns,
Dearly beloved in Christ Lay Sisters and Brothers:
Peace and God’s blessing!

Dearly beloved in Christ, in a few days we will celebrate the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, an extraordinarily important event for each of us, for our families, communities, the nation, the Church and all humanity. This event is so important that we even divide the history of humanity into the years before the birth of Jesus Christ and after His birth. And we do this not occasionally or by chance, but on the basis of a deep awareness that the world before His coming on the earth was strongly different from the world which came after His arrival. It is similar with the life of each of us. When we become part of the body of Jesus Christ through the holy sacrament of baptism, we recognize Him and meet with Him; our life acquires another, new and better appearance. To recognize, to understand, to feel that closeness of God to us and the possibility of our closeness to the Lord, this is a thing which changes fully our image of human life, our feeling of ourselves, our own life, and the life of humanity in general.

I greet you on the holy feast which is on its way and cordially wish for each of you, as well as for myself, that on these holy days we may come closer to the Lord God, open our hearts to His love, receive Him, understand that He first loved us, and that the essence of our life is to respond to His love with our love, love for Him and all our neighbors.

We can very well recognize this love of God and love of neighbors in a situation which has happened in recent years. For the fourth time now many citizens of Ukraine are leaving their native land and traveling abroad to search for a better life. I call this to mind, dearly beloved in Christ, because this Sunday of the Holy Fathers is the last one before Christmas and in our Church is the Day of the Migrant. According to the plan of the Holy Synod of Bishops of our Church, on this day we should turn our attention to those who have left their native land but have not yet decided whether to return home or to settle in the country of their current stay.

The question of migration is relevant not only for the migrants themselves but also for all our nation and, foremost, for our Church. It touches every one of us, because even today one-third of the faithful of our Church are migrants, or the children and grandchildren of migrants, old wanderers from Ukraine. But in addition, on the occasion of the feast of Christmas it is worth remembering that Jesus Christ Himself was in such a situation, that when he was still a small child he had to leave the country of his birth and migrate together with Mary and Joseph.

Considering this, I want to emphasize the following. All of us – those who are in Ukraine, those who left recently, and those who have now lived in the diaspora for a long time, developing our ecclesiastical and social structures – are one people and one Church. And I ask today all of you, dear in Christ, to pray for one another, or rather, that each one pray for all. And let us try to love each other, that is, wish good for each other, try to understand others, entrust our needs to God, and help each other in the measure of our own possibilities.

Dearly beloved in Christ, with the holy feast of the Nativity of Christ I cordially greet all of you and sincerely wish God’s many graces.

Christ is born!

+ LUBOMYR

I charge this greeting to be read on the Sunday of the Holy Fathers: on December 21, 2008, for those who celebrate Christmas according to the Gregorian calendar, and on January 4, 2009, for those who keep the Julian calendar.

His Beatitude Lubomyr (Husar) is the Major Archbishop and Cardinal of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.

Source: www.ugcc.org.ua