The Feast of our Saviour’s birth, Christmas, comes to us year on year, whatever the condition of our personal circumstances.
Like
most years, 2012 brought its highs and lows. The Olympics and the
Paralympics inspired us, strengthened communities and consolidated the
human family. The Arab Spring continued to manifest further the
potential of social media, unleashed forces both positive and negative.
In Church and society the hurt and destruction wrought by the abuse of
children and vulnerable adults still cried out for unflinching
consistency in the pursuit of safeguarding and the growth of a culture
of vigilance.
The economic crisis hit many households hard: businesses
have closed or moved, jobs and livelihoods have been lost and new
poverty has emerged in our communities, neighbourhoods and family
circles. In our own streets, despite our common Christian heritage and
faith, old ghosts, untamed and myopic tribal forces, have returned to
haunt us and menace our future. Census and poll results on religious
identity and practice have caught our attention and shape attitude for
some.
What
light can the good tidings of Christmas bring into this ever opaque,
betimes bewildering, oftentimes harsh world? This question raises its
head for all thinking Christians.
Yet
the Good News of the Gospel retains its radical newness. From
generation to generation it calls to knowledge of God in the person of
Jesus Christ, to fullness of life, to truth, to love and respect of
neighbour, to forgiveness. It challenges one’s mind and heart afresh in
each year’s circumstances. Year on year, at Christmas, it offers its
light and life in the Christ child.
Life’s
experience and history is thickly sprinkled with Christians who have
made and continue to make exceptional and extra-ordinary difference to
the lives of many. Some make that difference by helping the sick, by
loyally supporting a spouse, parent or friend in great suffering. Others
do so by promoting choice for life and its dignity in all
circumstances. Still others are inspired by their faith in Christ to
work for justice in communities or on the international scene, or by
engaging in heroic, self-sacrificing development or relief work.
The
God-child, the mystery-laden love of the incarnation of the divine in
the historical person of Jesus of Nazareth drives, impels and sustains
the grind of their dedication. That dedication, when encountered and
experienced, edifies, and sometimes unsettles and questions personal
inertia. Like the prophetic voice of the pages of the Bible, echoed
still in the life of the Christian community, it never leaves one
indifferent or unaffected.
Each
Christmas unveils the fact that our response to God’s Word incarnate in
Jesus of Nazareth is a continuing choice, ever to be renewed, to be
made, risked and chosen by each individual and by each generation. That
faith choice involves exploration, questing, discovery, sometimes
intense and discomforting emotional and mental wrestling and also to
times of calm.
The figures of the three Magi in the crib,
personifications of political power, of wealth and production, and of
investigative human reason, identified the Christ-child as the end and
also as the beginning of their search. Their gifts of gold, frankincense
and myrrh (Mt.2.11) offer precious tribute to a reality, indeed to
life beyond power, wealth and reason – to divine love and its incarnate
dynamics.
In
the Catholic tradition this Year of Faith, running from Sunday 11
October 2012 until the Feast of Christ the King on Sunday 24 November
2013, and the recent Synod on the New Evangelisation for the
Transmission of the Christian Faith, together with the Down and Connor
diocesan Living Church initiative, invite us to explore the Good News of
faith in Jesus Christ and to come alive as individual believers, as a
Christian community and as a living Church, to the energising and saving
power the message of salvation releases in our lives.
In the name of the new-born Saviour, I wish you all the blessings of this Holy Season.
+ Noel Treanor
Bishop of Down and Connor