“In our world too, a stable once had something inside it that was bigger than our whole world,” said Queen Lucy to the Lord Digory during a dialogue in the Chronicles of Narnia VII (The Last Battle, C. S. Lewis).

We used this phrase in the 2018 Christmas card of Trabajo y Persona, because it represents the totalizing fact that the birth of baby Jesus means for Christians: the connection between the infinite and the finite. Something inside a barn that was “bigger than the whole world”, is something that breaks all thought categories for that time and even today.

The origin of everything, what gives meaning to all things became fragile and small as a baby; In addition, he chose a humble place with few resources to become a Presence, and as if it were not enough he was born in a time and space oppressed by an empire, full of social conflicts and shortcomings.

This paradox reaches us in a historical moment with many similarities and we have the same dilemma of pastors: to ignore it and continue with our lives, to flee full of fear or to go to know that Presence; because if it were not true, we would still remain with the doubt during all of our lives. However,  if we go towards the encounter we may face something that would change history.

Also, our gestures, initiatives, and projects can be fragile and small as a baby. They can be even developed in simple places, and be surrounded by thousands of social and political problems as well; but the real problem is if we have the certainty that the thing we do in particular is connected with the whole, just like in that stable.

Against the forecasts, 2018 was a year of growth for Trabajo y Persona: new people in the team, stable presence in several cities, and two new trades to continue offering opportunities to those who want to earn a decent living. However, even if “the stable” grows, the dilemma is the same: Are we capable of recognizing that Presence in what we do? Is that enough to start our tenth anniversary full of hope?

Luigi Giussani affirms that “faith is to recognize with certainty that Presence and hope is to recognize the certainty of the future that is born of that Presence”. That is why we, who want to live in faith and hope, have the greatest challenge: to make contemporary the phrase of Queen Lucy of Narnia: that in our stable remains something that is bigger than the whole world.