45,000 gift packs are being distributed to homes the length and breadth of the Kildare and Leighlin diocese as part of this year’s Reach Out campaign. This year’s gift pack contains three beautiful nativity scene Christmas tree decorations made from olive wood by Christian artists from Bethlehem.
“These gifts demonstrate our solidarity with Christians in the Holy Land,” says Bishop Jim Moriarty of Kildare and Leighlin, in a warm Christmas message accompanying the gift.
The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Archbishop Fouad Twal, also personally addresses the people of the diocese saying the initiative is a great encouragement to them. “Be assured that we will remember your intentions and needs as we gather in Bethlehem and across the Holy Land to celebrate our Saviour’s birth,” he writes in his message which flanks that of Bishop Moriarty.
The Christmas project, he says, has “made a real difference for many families,” and this kind of spiritual and practical support is helping to stem the flow of Christians leaving the Holy Land.
The linking of the diocese with a cottage industry in Bethlehem happened by chance.
A year ago, Fr Pádraic Shelley from the Carlow cathedral parish was having a cup of coffee in the Powerscourt Town Centre when he spotted a stall with hand-made olive wood crafts from Bethlehem.
He got talking to the Palestinian family running the stand, and through this the diocese began negotiations with the small family run business in Bethlehem, for 135,000 carved Christmas decorations.
“They thought all their Christmases had come at once,” Fr Shelley told ciNews.
“Initially they were absolutely delighted, but when they saw the scale of the order, they got a bit worried. They wanted to be sure they would be able to honour the order.”
In any case, the wood carvings were completed by September, and successfully shipped to Ireland. Each pack of three costs about €1 in the Holy Land.
According to Fr Shelley the gifts are eco friendly as the wood used is taken from the off cuts of olive trees, many of which are hundreds of years old.
“We are hoping people will hang the ornaments on their Christmas trees, and think of the people of Jerusalem and remember them in their prayers.”
Patriarch Twal suggests people might recite the prayer of Pope John Paul II in Bethlehem: “O Child of Bethlehem…heal all our wounds, strengthen our steps, open our hearts and minds to ‘the loving kindness of the heart of our God who visits us like the dawn from on high’ (Luke 1:78). Amen”.
Each parish in the diocese will pay for the Reach Out gifts, so the costs will ultimately be covered from the collections.
“Ordinary people are helping other ordinary people, but they are also standing with people who are t he victims of oppression,” says Fr Shelley, who sees the Reach Out campaign as being very in tune with the Declaration of Human Rights, the goals of which, he says, "are worth nurturing and valuing.”
“We are praying for peace, but also trying to support the people there in a concrete way, and saying infringing people’s human rights is not the way forward for anyone,” he says.
In addition to the olive wood carvings, every church in the diocese will be burning a Peace Lamp from the Holy Land. These were sourced by Fr Shelley and Fr Bill Kemmy, from Taybeh, one of the” last Christian communities in the Holy Land,” according to Fr Mícheál Murphy, PRO for the diocese.
Over 100 of these have been distributed to churches. Each lamp is worth about €25.
Cardinal Seán Brady, who was part of an ecumenical group that visited the Holy Land earlier this year, lit the first Taybeh Peace Lamp when he recently officiated at the 175th anniversary Mass of Carlow Cathedral.
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(Source: CIN)