The book itself is a gift from the Holy Father. A gift for the Church and for all people of good will for the Christmas of 2012. At the same time, it is a gift from the Church to the world today. Given a gift like this, our first reflections are those of thanks. We could not yet read the whole book, we have had just excerpts of it, but what we read has struck several cords. The approach taken in this book to “The infancy narratives Jesus of Nazareth” is characteristic both of the universal teaching of the Church and of the personal style of Pope Benedict XVI, just as it is manifest in “Caritas in Veritate”: it is “without yielding to sentimentality”, therefore it is warm and compassionate, elevating one to the truth of Christmas – in contrast to the “Christmas” of the world compromised by irreconcilable pursuits. Another resonating cord has guided us to the primacy of the question: “Where is Jesus from?”. It points to the issue of origins, not only in the case of the Lord, but also in the case of all mankind, and in that of ourselves. Without the valid answer to these questions human life in general, and Christian life in particular, is necessarily pointless. Still another cord reverberating since reading those passages has reminded us of the essential unity of the life of our Redeemer. We are accustomed to view the Lord’s life, as most other events in general, in its spatial-temporal sequence. This goes also for Christmas, when we tend to recall only the birth scene. The Holy Father points out the integral unity of the life our Lord, the total coherence and presence of His earthly mission in all its moments, from his birth to his death, and beyond. What else could we say than thanks for the consolation and reinforcement only love in truth can convey?