“We await with certain hope the second coming of Christ because we have known the first. The mystery of Bethlehem reveals God-with-us, the God who is near us, not simply in a spatial and temporal sense. He is near us because he has ‘wedded,’ one might say, our humanity. He took the human condition upon himself, choosing to be like us in every way, except in sin, so that we may become like him.

Christian joy thus springs from this certainty: God is close, he is with me, he is with us, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health, as a friend and faithful spouse. And this joy endures, even in trials, in suffering itself. It does not remain only on the surface. It dwells in the depths of the person who entrusts himself to God and trusts in him.”

Pope Benedict XVI
What It Means to Be a Christian