'Discover God anew this Christmas' - bishops

Malta's bishops have urged people not to be "afraid of the risk of faith", while encouraging believers to give witness of their faith in God in a way that is seen, felt and brings change around them.

In their first pastoral letter during Advent, Archbishop Paul Cremona and Gozo Bishop Mario Grech said: "God is no longer relevant in many people's lives... and we are experiencing how the ideology of progress that excludes God can work against the human being himself."

The bishops said the world recently experienced this when, due to exaggerated greed, it entered into an economic crisis. This, they warned, was leading to a culture that was threatening harmony, and clouding relationships that once used to sustain the family. It is a culture that "misleads the human being because it promises various forms of salvation that in effect result as insufficient as they do not fulfill (the) spirit".

The bishops said: "The story of Bethlehem is not a story for children. It is a story that continues to happen and could shed light on the way we are living today..."

They said when God became a human being it enriched humanity with great dignity and it is only He who can give us true freedom and full dignity.

"However, today we (have) turned this truth into a fable. In the name of progress and freedom, the dignity of the human being is very often easily vilified in a culture where everything is measured according to efficiency and utility.

"The concept of unrestrained individual freedom is turning ever more into violence in society, also in domestic violence. The search for satisfaction is leading to an emptiness which many are trying to fill by resorting to drugs, alcohol and gambing," they warned. They also referred to the abuse of IT to spread pornography.

Although life had today changed for the better, there would nevertheless always be things that hurt and destroyed people, that created obstacles and robbed their peace, and we would continue suffering from different forms of slavery, the bishops said.

The Church would like to be present in the lives of many, to accompany them and help them so they may sincerely search for God, and find Him, they added.

While acknowledging that Christmas always brings joy and a sense of altruism and solidarity, the bishops noted that it is also a time when it is easier for the Word of God to be lost in the many activities that celebrations bring about with them.

The bishops' wish for Christmas is for people to "discover God anew" in their personal lives.

"Let us not end up searching for God only when we are with our back against the wall during suffering or in the face of death," they concluded.