Now that it is Christmas
This year’s Christmas isn’t the usual Christmas. It came just a few days after the world should have imploded; which fortunately it didn’t. It also comes just before the start of the electoral campaign. There is a truce of sorts; with the emphasis on the words “of sorts”. One hopes that the true spirit of Christmas will accompany us during the coming weeks.
Christmas is one of the greatest feasts for all Christians and signals a radical development in the history of humanity, as the Pope so aptly reminded us in his op-piece just published in the Financial Times of London.
We believe that God became a man so that we humans could have a share in His own nature. Quite naturally this has myriad implication on the level of personal, communal and political way of living for all men and women. Christmas should be the guarantee that all humans live in true freedom, dignity and solidarity. The evangelising message of Christmas leads to human promotion and liberty. The belief in the sovereignty of God should help us guarantee these basic human values.
We are also told that this the season to be jolly; and so it really is. But it is also said that during these times when the general atmosphere is one of happiness and joy those who feel lonely or depressed will feel that their burden is heavier than it is usually during the rest of the year.
Do we forget those who suffer in silence particularly during this period? This would be a shame.
It is the duty of all men and women of good faith to help those who are suffering, many times in silence. If we want this season to be really jolly we must try and make it jolly to those who are lonely or in some form of pain.
Christmas should also be the battle cry against a cultural milieu that reduces the human person to one dimension and thus reduces human dignity. On the other hand love and solidarity are the strong messages that Christianity puts forward. There are many tasks that can be done to put forward this perspective. The media and those who work in them have the duty to try and propose models of life and cultural ways that respect the values of life, the family, and society. Such models will be a great help to convert individualist attitudes and tendencies of the post-modern culture... into positive, personal, altruistic, and patterns of behaviour in favour of life.
Christmas more than any other Christian feast flies in the face of consumerism. Christmas is the feast of being over having. He who had everything abandoned everything to help us be more. Thanks to the Incarnation we can be more human because we can be more like God, our Father and Creator. Ever since that time Christianity has emphasised that human dignity depends on the fact that it is created in the image and likeness of God and not on the possessions that a particular man or woman can or do have.
I wish the Editor, staff and all readers a very happy and holy Christmas.
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charles caruana
Dec 26th 2012, 09:46
Dear Mr Waschnig, my sincere Christmas wish and prayer for you is that you might some day see through your fake humanist Jesus to the real God become Man that we adore as Our Lord Jesus the Christ. Whenever I read you the disturbing sensation I get is summed up in that saying: ' Hell is paved with good intentions.' May the real Christ bless you.
Francis Saliba M.D.
Dec 25th 2012, 17:00
Dragging Christ down to the level of Mahatma Gandhi or any other human being is offensive in a country whose official religion is Christianity although we tolerate all religions.
I wonder if Kurt Waschnig's intrusive comments are a spillover from some profusion of output in his native country or whether he reserves his provocative comments for our delectation but only annoy.
Andy Farrugia
Dec 25th 2012, 17:57
Excellently well said, esp. with regards to Herr Waschnig.
Kurt Waschnig
Dec 25th 2012, 14:30
Dear Father Joe Borg, I enjoy reading your blogs. Continue with your writing. I would like to wish you a Merry Christmas!
Regards
Kurt
Kurt Waschnig
Dec 25th 2012, 14:06
6. Christmas is a time of joy and happiness, a time of love and peace. Human beings like Jesus and Mahatma Gandhi showed that our world can be a better place to live for all. Jesus and Mahatma Gandhi should be taken as examples.
Jessica Debattista
Dec 25th 2012, 15:18
“Human beings like Jesus and Mahatma Gandhi......” seems to disregard that Jesus was also the Son of God. It was through His nature of God that He could redeem mankind. No human sacrifice would have sufficed to redeem mankind. Only God could take on the sins of the world (2 Corinthians 5:21), die, and be resurrected, proving His victory over sin and death.
Richard Curmi
Dec 29th 2012, 06:24
"A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act."
Ghandi had a very high esteem of the Christ. He did not like christians because he deemed them to be so unlike Christ. Kurt in his 6 entries said a lot of good things but he was looking at Christ from a secular point of view.
Kurt Waschnig
Dec 25th 2012, 14:05
5. He had no servants, yet they called him Master! He had no degrees, yet they called him Teacher! He administered no medicines, yet they called him Healer. He had no army, yet the kings feared him. He won no military battles, yet he conquered the world with love and forgiveness. He committed no crime, yet they crucified him!
Kurt Waschnig
Dec 25th 2012, 14:04
4. From a secular point of view, Jesus was a young man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another village. He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty, and then for three years He was an itinerant preacher. He never wrote a book. He never went to college. He never put His foot inside a big city.
Kurt Waschnig
Dec 25th 2012, 14:02
3. There is no doubt, the words of Jesus bore a message of hope to the lowly and the down-trodden. I love what Jesus said like: Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are the meek, Blessed are they who mourn. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice. Blessed are the merciful. Blessed are the clean of heart. Blessed are the peacemakers.
Kurt Waschnig
Dec 25th 2012, 14:02
2.His preaching bore a universal message - a message of peace, love and forgiveness. That is why thousands thronged to listen to his words. His parables were pictorial stories which communicated heavenly values. His miracles healed the sick, fed the hungry and even raised the dead to life. Believers believe in that.
Kurt Waschnig
Dec 25th 2012, 14:01
1. “Merry Christmas “and “Happy New Year” are two greetings which go out in a pair as the New Year follows Christmas. Christmas or "Christ's Mass" is an annual commemoration of the birth of Jesus Christ on December 25 by billions of people all over the world. It is a civil holiday in many of the world's nations and is celebrated all over the world.
Please choose the reason of your report below: