Snow speaks to us of innocence without stain, of virginal and pure beauty that has the power to delight the eyes and hearts.

Newsroom (23/12/2021 21:10, Gaudium Press) I believe I am agreeable when I say that the most harmonious scene of Christmas blessings is that which is framed and adorned by snow.

How many, many times has our childlike imagination (and not only the imagination of a child!) easily allowed itself to be transported to the beautiful and captivating panoramas painted by Christmas tales; some of them so touching and so apt to awaken in the human spirit the best spiritual and moral dispositions that the advent of the Son of God has given to the world.

Villages covered with an immaculate whiteness, reflecting on the roofs of their houses, on the paths, on the branches of the pines and the slender trees, the brightness of a limpid and diaphanous blue, serene and silent, telling us something of that quietude anointed with blessings from Heaven. These blessings that enveloped the stable of Bethlehem where the Eternal Word was born for time, clothed in our nature.

Snow speaks to us of innocence without stain, of the virginal and pure beauty that has the power to delight the eyes and hearts.

Not without reason did the repentant and penitent Psalmist compare the regeneration of his soul with the whiteness of this fascinating creature: “You will sprinkle me with hyssop and I shall be purified; you will wash me and I shall become whiter than snow.” (Ps 50:9).

(Ps 50:9) “Snowy candour, innocence of the Divine Infant, born of the Virgin – Immaculate Mother, under the care of the most chaste Saint Joseph – the Christmas atmosphere that always invites humanity to stop, for one night, for one day, the laborious routine of its existence in this land of exile, and to rejoice, to comfort itself with the unfailing promises of peace and happiness that came to us from on high with this Child, now reclining in a manger!

By Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

Compiled by Sandra Chisholm