Antioch's "small, extraordinary Christmas miracles"
These are gestures, like the Muslim widow who prepared biscuits for her poor Christian neighbours, which will not change the course of history, but they will surely leave their mark on the hearts of those who know how to guard and pass them on.
Antioch (AsiaNews) The small, extraordinary miracles of Christmas in Antioch. The AsiaNews correspondent in Turkey, Mavi Zambak, tells us about them in her letter: "Every year, they say Christmas is the day when God tells us he is not ashamed of the lowliness of man and he loves what is small, insignificant, rejected, weak and despised to the point that he became man by being born in a stable (in a trough for beasts!).
Every year, they tell us that if we like the shepherds and the magi are capable of placing all our vanity, presumption, pride and obstinacy at the foot of the manger, then we too, like Mary, will be able to say: 'The Lord has looked down on my lowliness: my soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit exults in God my Saviour'. It will be Christmas for us too, the real Christmas that fills the heart with Peace and Light.
And in a special way this year, Pope Benedict XVI told us that 'God is so great that he can become small. God is so powerful that he can make himself vulnerable and come to us as a defenceless child, so that we can love him. God is so good that he can give up his divine splendour and come down to a stable, so that we might find him, so that his goodness might touch us, give itself to us and continue to work through us.'
Christmas, then, is the feast of the Lowliness of God, a feast in which the small, extraordinary miracles of everyday life are celebrated.
If this is really the case, I am sure, then, that it was Christmas for Leyla, a poor Muslim widow who, with generosity, care and affection, prepared handmade biscuits in "industrial quantities" for her neighbours' 12 children even poorer than herself so that they could celebrate the birth of Jesus with joy.
And it was Christmas for the 10 Christian children who gathered to pray around Baby Jesus in a crib they made from coloured paper throughout Advent. As they prayed, their peers played ball in the neighbourhood alleys, just like any other day, unaware of the great event unfolding.
And then there was the group of youth and elderly people, children, men and women, Christians and Muslims who defied the rain and cold of the night to celebrate Christmas Mass in 'St Peter's Grotto', gathered around the bishop of Anatolia, Mgr Padovese. I certainly believe they relived the anticipation felt by the shepherds, that they too experienced the need for the goodwill and peace of God even if perhaps they did not have a pre-tailored, precise idea of what to expect. Did the Light of Love enter their open hearts?
It was Christmas for Betul too, who shared a chicken on a spit, vegetables and some bananas with two orphans Gemma and Yusuf in their home (a little more than a shack), while a grand Christmas gala dinner was under way in the city's most renowned hotel for all the civil and religious authorities.
It was Christmas for Chandrika thanks to the generosity of her Muslim neighbour. The Sinhalese Christian, who was abandoned by her Turkish husband, has had no news about her parents and other relatives since the terrible tsunami last year. Her neighbour welcomed Chandrika into her home and allowed her to watch a Sri Lankan television channel via satellite all night, so that she could enjoy Christmas celebrations in her country and through her language.
Meanwhile, in Altinozu, a country in the hills around Antioch, the entire Orthodox community gathered in small groups in individual homes and "heard" Midnight Mass in Arabic on television, watching a Lebanese, Catholic channel. And Christmas thus came into their families too.
And who knows how many other Christmases here in Antioch, in this corner of Turkey, and in the whole world passed unnoticed by man, but certainly seen by God
Small gestures, perhaps miracles which will not change the course of history, but surely they will leave their mark in the hearts of those who know how to guard them and pass them on.
Give us the grace, Lord, to be able to catch a glimpse of your Christmases in our life (in the suffering, exhaustion, sadness or in the constant everyday boredom) so that the Peace, Hope and Goodwill of Christmas will never be less in us and around us."
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20/12/2018 16:35
