Christmas, beauty and mission
Rome (AsiaNews) - This year Christmas falls at a difficult time. From several signs in the world - not least the difficulties of dialogue between rich and poor countries in Copenhagen; the crisis of oil producing countries and the Emirates - we realize that the global economic crisis is not at all over, some economists are even expecting more falls in investment, production and employment.
Moreover if we look to the testimonies we have received from the peoples of Asia that fill our pages, we see that the crisis is not only economic but social. The many problems of the people remain unchanged after years: Burmese monks remain imprisoned in Myanmar, activists, democrats, bishops and priests remain in the hands of Chinese police, the Christians in India have yet to receive justice for the pogroms they suffered; Japanese young people and adults in their tens of thousands continue to take her own life.
If we look at the Middle East, the land of Jesus, the obstacles and paralysis appear almost total. A war that has lasted for decades has so thoroughly overwhelmed Israelis and Palestinians that bullying and violence have become the worn-out methods to hide a mutual inability to secure peace.
If we add to all of this the fact that Iraq is still unstable; that Iran is on the brink of conflict with the West; the violence against minorities in Pakistan; the lack of freedom in Arabia, everything seems really enveloped in the stasis of a fatal disease, a kind of dark night in which no one knows how to move forward. In fact, politicians and peoples seem to be really groping along a dark path devoid of solutions. And the presumption and the promises of so many seem to be only a mask to their unacknowledged impotence.
A reading of the Bible, often used as the prophecy of Christmas says: " For when peaceful stillness compassed everything and the night in its swift course was half spent, Your all-powerful word from heaven's royal throne bounded, a fierce warrior, into the doomed land,"(Wis 18,14-15). This sentence grasps the entire depth of night and darkness, but also speaks of the only real novelty from which to begin again: God, the truth, justice, happiness of man has bounded to live among us not to leave us alone. Deep in the night he turned on the light of his friendship and decided to be close to our misery forever.
In my years of mission in Hong Kong and China and travel to many parts of Asia I have often celebrated Christmas among the persecuted in China, the flood victims of Bangladesh, the slums of India, the Montagnards of Vietnam, or among Christians in a Beirut pounded by bombs. Christmas, the feast of the birth of Jesus, has always been the reason for being happy while immersed in toil, poverty and injustice. This being entranced by the beauty of the Son of God gives us the strength to endure and to return every day to build our own life and the lives of others, spending our existence unsparingly, without harbouring it like a fruitless talent. Thanks to the feast of the Church, creative works of charity rise up within all peoples, which educate, care for, welcome and support even the merest shred of truth and justice of the people. The reports published by AsiaNews are studded with these flowers in the desert, these lights in the darkest night that give hope for the world.
A few weeks ago meeting with 200 artists in the Sistine Chapel, Benedict XVI requested their collaboration to help "wrench the world from resignation". Quoting a phrase of Paul VI he said: "This world in which we live needs beauty in order not to sink into despair. Beauty, like truth, is what brings joy to the hearts of men".
This task is given to artists, but also to missionaries. Dear friends, thank you for your support to our small work that restores hope to our world. Merry Christmas.
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