The first rays of morning are still timid, as if apologizing for disturbing the solemn silence of the night, yet within me, the light has already shifted in its intensity. When I awoke, I felt that something fundamental had moved in the way I perceive the space outside of myself. If yesterday’s reflection was focused on my personal encounter with the Divine, today I understand that this birth in Him cannot remain confined within the boundaries of my solitude. It is like a stone cast into still water—the circles expand until they encompass the entire horizon of my human relationships. Suddenly, I realize that my sanctification is inextricably linked to the way I see the face of the Other, and that every human being I meet carries within them their own deep and sometimes impenetrable inner cave.
Before this experience of renewal, the world of others often seemed to me like a collection of functions, roles, or—worse—as a screen for my own projections. Psychoanalysis teaches us that we rarely see the person standing before us; more often, we see fragments of our own past, our fears, and unfulfilled desires that we attribute to the other. But when Christ is born in us, this mechanism of projection begins to crumble. The light of the Nativity is so potent that it burns away the masks we place upon others. I can no longer see my neighbor as merely an adversary, a competitor, or an object of indifference. I see them as a place of Divine presence, as a person in whose "cave" the mystery of birth is also occurring—or longing to occur.
This radically alters my gaze. Now, when I look at people on the street—hurried, anxious, hidden behind their coats and their cares—I try to see beyond their outer shell. I ask myself: what is their personal darkness? What are their mangers? Everyone carries within them their own incompleteness, their trauma, their "poverty," but in the context of the Nativity, this poverty is no longer a cause for shame; it is a place for Grace. If God chose the humblest place to become incarnate, then the most wounded and darkest corners in the souls of others are precisely the places where He is most powerfully present. This is the true purification of sight—to stop judging the symptoms of another's pain and to begin honoring the sanctity of another's suffering.
In this new optic, the other person ceases to be "foreign." If we are all born in Him, then we share a common spiritual DNA. My "I" and your "you" meet in a larger "We," which is the body of Christ Himself. This is the social mysticism of the holiday. We cannot love the Invisible God if we do not learn to recognize His image in the "caves" of those who are difficult for us to love. Often, the most unpleasant qualities in others are actually their defensive walls, built around a very small and very frightened light. My task now, as an initiate of the feast, is to learn the patience of waiting for that light to show itself. Not to rush with judgments, but to create a space of quiet acceptance in which the other might feel safe enough to lower their armor.
I contemplate the concept of the Liturgy of the Neighbor. If the temple is the place of organized prayer, then the encounter with the other is the site of the living Eucharist. When I listen to someone with full attention, without interrupting them with my interpretations or advice, I am actually performing an act of internal sanctification. I bow before their cave. Here, the psychoanalytic stance merges with the spiritual—it is that "evenly-suspended attention" which seeks not to possess, but to be present. To be a witness to another's becoming is a sacred duty. And in this witnessing, we find that our own voids are filled. Paradoxically, the more we open ourselves to the inner world of the other, the more strongly we feel our own centering.
There is a particular melancholy in seeing how many people live without suspecting the treasure within their own cave. They seek light from the outside—in recognition, in possessions, in loud amusements—while it flickers quietly in the darkest corner of their own spirit. Sometimes I want to stop them and say: "Stop running; everything you seek is already within you." But I know that this is a path everyone must walk alone. My birth in Him teaches me the humility not to try to be the savior of others, but simply to be a companion. To shine with my own small candle, not to blind them, but to help them see their own steps toward their inner center.
This new vision also demands radical forgiveness. Forgiveness is not merely forgetting an offense; it is the recognition of the fact that the one who hurt us did so out of their own frailty, out of their own "unsanctified" darkness. When I see in another's aggression a cry for help from their unborn divine self, my anger turns into compassion. This is a psychological liberation from the shackles of resentment. I am no longer a victim of others' projections because I know they have nothing to do with my essence in Him. I am free to love without demanding anything in return, for my source is inexhaustible.
I look through the window as the daylight strengthens and I imagine the thousands of "caves" in this city. Some are orderly and clean, others are in chaos and pain, but in every single one of them smolders the possibility of a new beginning. the Nativity of Christ is the feast of our common destiny. We do not save ourselves individually. We rise together, supporting each other in moments of weakness, recognizing Christ in the face of the stranger, the poor, the one who thinks differently from us. This is the true rooting in humanity—to understand that your pain is also mine, and that my joy is incomplete without yours.
In this sense, the holiday becomes a continuous initiation into the art of relationships. How can I be present in the life of another without suffocating them? How can I love them without possessing them? The answer lies in this shared space "in Him." When two people meet in Truth, something third is born between them—a third light that belongs to neither of them but illuminates them both. This is the mystery of community, of true communion. Psychoanalysis calls this the "intersubjective space"; spirituality calls it "where two or three are gathered in My name."
Today, my diary is more of a prayer book for others. I write down the names of those with whom I have difficult relationships and I try to see them through the prism of sanctification. I imagine them in their purest, divine form, before they were wounded by life, before they built their defenses. And I feel my heart expanding, the old knots of tension loosening. This is my purification—to clear my consciousness of judgment. To allow the Christ within me to greet the Christ within them.
This "birth in Him" also gives us the courage to be vulnerable before others. When I know that my value is anchored in the Eternal, I am no longer afraid to show my own cave, my own manger. This shared vulnerability is the strongest bridge between people. It is what makes us truly human. In these holy days, my wish is not only for peace and health, but for the courage to truly see one another. To see each other beyond economic status, beyond political convictions, beyond our psychological diagnoses. To see each other as souls traveling toward the same Source.
As I conclude this reflection, I feel how the silence in the room has changed. It is no longer just my silence. It is the silence of all those who, at this moment, are also seeking meaning, who long for comfort, who await their birth. We are connected in one vast, invisible body of light and shadow, of hope and melancholy. And at the center of it all stands the Infant—the symbol of our eternal possibility to start anew.
Christ is born in us, and we in Him—and in this mutual overflowing, the entire world is transformed. The caves are no longer places of isolation; they are sanctuaries of encounter. The feast continues in the gaze I cast upon the first person I meet today. Let this gaze be filled with Grace. Let it be a small Nativity.
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