Speaking of Christmas to a distracted world

AsiaNews' editor's season's greetings: "Let us remain with wonder in our hearts before Christmas and speak about it to those who are distracted by too many things in life.  Man and the Church need nothing more".

When I think of Bethlehem "in those days" I imagine a busy town, caught up in the ongoing census, with the movement of people and the exchange of goods. A frenetic movement that did not allow anyone, except for a handful of shepherds, to realise what was happening: God was being born right there. Such a decisive event for the life of men went unnoticed. They were all distracted and busy with other things. Yet God was born all the same and continues to live and work today despite our distractions.

Humanity seems increasingly disinterested in God. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger said this in a radio address on 25 December 1969; commenting on the crisis in the Church that began in those years, he prophesied what we see clearly today: the Church is losing ground, it is losing its political and economic value, what it proposes no longer interests the masses, the people are attracted by other things.

Ratzinger said: "What will remain will be the Church of Jesus Christ, the Church that believes in the God who became man and promises us life after death". What will remain will be the event of Christmas that makes us look forward to the resurrection. Nothing more will remain because nothing more is needed for man and the Church.

I come from a Church that has suffered a great deal, the church in Cambodia, which has survived thanks to tenacity, concealment, prayers said in Latin in the rice fields so that the Khmer Rouge would not understand, the Eucharist "smuggled" into the woods on the border with Thailand so that the few Christians who could be reached could receive Communion. I have met many Vietnamese who live a closed faith, controlled by a strict government, yet they continue to attend liturgies and fill seminaries and convents. In Italy we are beginning to sell churches, monasteries and oratories, just as Ratzinger prophesied, and we are only at the beginning. We will become more and more of a minority, less and less significant socially and politically, but more and more a community of people aware of being the Body of Christ, therefore a sign of hope and resurrection for those who do not yet believe.

And this is the reason that drives us every day to bring you our AsiaNews. We do so by recounting the many wounds of this continent, so often in the news. But - with the local Churches - we also give voice to the hope that is born in the peripheries of Asia today, far from the eyes of the world, just like the Child Jesus in Bethlehem. And if we can continue to do so, it is only thanks to your friendship and your support, which we ask for again this Christmas as a gift. 

The handful of shepherds told of seeing a child who would become a great promise. There were only 12 apostles, but they began to evangelise the whole world. While society may be distracted this Christmas, we do not lose heart. On the contrary, we stop even more to contemplate the beauty of Jesus being born and, like the shepherds, we become the heralds of this miracle.

A few evenings ago, 22-year-old Thomas told me: "We are living in a wonderful time, full of opportunities for us Christians and for the Church". Let us remain with this wonder in our hearts before Christmas and let us also tell it to those who are distracted by too many things in life.

Merry Christmas!

P.S. The picture that accompanies these reflections comes from Thailand: it was taken in these days and depicts the Christmas novena in the parish of Mae Suai, among the mountain tribes, where the PIME missionaries carry out their ministry. 

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