الرئيس عبد الفتاح السيسي يهنئ الكنيسة ومصر بعيد ميلاد السيد المسيح وبافتتاح كاتدرائية ميلاد السيد المسيح

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God. Amen. At the beginning of the New Year of 2019, I greet all of you on the occasion of the Glorious Feast of Nativity, Christmas. And I hope for everyone, everywhere, every good and every blessing.
I send my heartfelt greetings and the greetings of the entire Church here in Egypt to everyone: to all the Metropolitans and Bishops, to all the priests and deacons, to all Church servants, Church leaders and Church committees, to all the youth groups, as well as to all the congregations and children in all our Coptic churches in every continent around the world – in North America and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and everywhere where there are people celebrating the Glorious Feast of the Nativity, according to the Eastern calendar.
After God created humans, He desired that they be perfect beings, living in perfect humanness. and God gave the human many abilities. But this human accepted sin, broke the commandment of God, and lived in darkness. This darkness is what we call ‘spiritual darkness.’
And so after this human had enjoyed freedom and love and the commandment, he chose to live in emptiness, despair and sin. He lost hope, lived in despair, and sin began to fill him and spread throughout the world, as the Holy Bible says, “Since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23).
And so the humanity of humans had a breakdown, and the human lost the most important thing he had, which is his humanity. And slowly, slowly, generation after generation, the human continued to lose his humanity and his love continued to harden and starve.
And so the human became hungry for love and this hunger for love caused him to live in great emptiness, despite all the advances in the world and its global communication systems. But where was the cure? The cure was love, that One would come to offer him love and to awaken love in him.
And so the Lord Christ came, as we read in the Holy Bible, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (Jn 3:16).
And the Lord Christ came to offer gentleness, tenderness, and love, and His intention in all of this was that the human return to his humanity. And there was no other way to do it than this way, that God would come and dwell among us, and so Immanuel, which means ‘God is with us,’ and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
God did not send an angel nor an archangel, nor a prophet, nor a political figure, nor an ambassador, but He came personally. He came because God loves humans, truly and not just in words.
And that is why we celebrate Christmas every year. We repeat this annual celebration of Christmas as if to renew our covenant with God, who came out of love for us, offering love to everyone.
In the Glorious Nativity we see that He loves the small village – Bethlehem, as well as the big city – Jerusalem. We see that He loves shepherds forgotten amidst the business of the world, while at the same time, we see that He loves wise men who live in countries faraway from Judea and Jerusalem.
He loves the Virgin, a young, poor, and orphaned girl, and at the same time He loves the Hannah the widow. He loves Joseph the Carpenter, the honorable elder and guardian over the secret of the incarnation, and he also loves the honorable elder St. Simeon, who was awaiting the coming of the Messiah, the Christ.
He loved the human in all his forms and came to satisfy him with love, the love the human needed to be restored to his humanity. And so during the Glorious Feast of Nativity, God sends you His love; to each one of you. He sends you this love and wants you to know that God is not far from you, that God never forgets you.
God wants you to know that He does not hate humans. He hates the sins of humans, but He loves humans themselves. He searches for and seeks every person. He came to fill you with hope, joy, and gladness.
God uses love to restore humanity to humans, and so beloved one, wherever you are, be careful that your heart does not become hardened; that your love doesn’t dry out. Be careful to make sure that your heart is always warm with the love that Christ offers you.
Know that despite the advanced current global communication systems and abundant communication devices which have turned the world into a small village, but because of profuse interaction with machines, the love in peoples’ hearts has dried up.
This has also led to additional human weaknesses, such as weakness in his ability to relate and communicate with others, weakness in his love toward others, and a weakening in his love of life. We also see that in the world there is an increase in violence, in crime, in terror, in family bonds, and in all kinds of addictions. All this is because the human heart has become starved of love.
And so the Feast of the Nativity is both a message and an opportunity for each one of us to come and be filled with this love, as the Lord Christ said in the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness” – for Christ, for Love – “for they shall be satisfied” (Mt 5:6).
Beloved ones, I greet you on the occasion of this Feast and for the joy of the Glorious Nativity. We remember our beloved martyrs, who are also rejoicing because they are in heaven. We also remember the wounded and pray for their healing.
We also pray for the peace of the whole world – for our country, Egypt, for every person, for every church, for every church service. And we pray that God would send this joy to each person, as it says in the Song of the Nativity: “Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, and goodwill to men” – joy to all people.
My greetings and all my best wishes to you, as I hope that each of you enjoy many holy days in this new year, and that the joy of the Nativity would fill your hearts and that you would be able to share this joy and love with everyone, and throughout all the communities in which you live. 

May God bless your lives and may He bless all the works of your hands. To our God be all the glory and honor, from now and to eternity. Amen.