Christmas reminds us that underpinning all our thinking on economic and social issues, and indeed our political engagement as citizens, is a radical conviction, a fundamental belief in the sanctity and dignity of all human life. God so loved us, that he sent his Son to become one like us in all things but sin. He stripped himself of his divine glory to take on our human nature in all its weakness: that is how great a value God put on our humanity. It is in virtue of our shared humanity, created in the image and likeness of God, that we are called to respect and honour each other. Each and every person, whatever his or her background, circumstances, wealth or status, creed or colour, is quite unique and irreplaceable and has a value which can never be lost and must never be ignored.

Whilst the Gospel most certainly points us beyond this earth and beyond life as we know it now. God's commandment is clear. "You must love your neighbour as yourself." That fundamental belief demands that we each play our part in helping to build a just and compassionate society and world here on this earth. We have a real responsibility not only to help those in need, but to address the causes of destitution and poverty - poverty which is not simply and solely material poverty, but the poverty of spirit and emotion which leads people to feel rejected, unwanted, unloved and unlovable - that alienation which leads us to feel we lack any respect of dignity in the eyes of individuals and society at large. This is an even more devastating and damaging poverty than material poverty, but one which we can address and begin to rectify as individuals.

Government, both national and local, has a particular responsibility for ensuring the material well-being of its citizens and seeing to it that the basic human rights to housing, health care, and education are adequately met. But good government is also about enabling and empowering men and women to realise their destiny as human beings freely and responsibly as befits their dignity as unique persons. Too much attention to economic and material welfare at the expense of other human values can result in reducing people to a passive state of dependency on welfare, stifling personal initiative and responsibility.
What is needed, and what was lacking at that first Christmas, is a spirit of true compassion for the "little people": the poor, the rejected, the marginalised in society. Without compassion, without unconditional love, we will never be able to remove the sever inequality which leaves those at the margins of society effectively excluded from the community. "... there was no room for them at the inn." May we each find room in our hears for God's "little ones". May the light of Christ, shining out of his poverty, reveal to each one of us the warmth of his love, and give us the courage and generosity to share that warmth and loving acceptance with everyone we meet this Christmas and in the coming years.