The Christians of Europe Western celebrate the birth of Christ in serenity, but it will not be the same for millions of their coreligionists, including those who live in regions of the world crossed by political, cultural, and religious dividing lines. Recent reminders are the bloody attacks against two churches in Mosul, Iraq, and the increasing tensions between the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Turkish government.
Why should the plight of the persecuted Christians concern us especially at this time of the year? Wouldn’t Christmas, a special time of the year, be more conducive to generous reflections? Could our good consciousness allow a passing, even distracted, thought for those who suffer when we are in euphoria? There is something else, more fundamental: Iraq and Turkey are places which resonate in the Western culture with familiar accents. Names Abraham and Paul of Tarsus, whose history and the Tradition teach that they lived there, come immediately to mind. The Christian faith has its roots in the East, and its growth has partly been on its shores. But who remembers? Its disappearance would indeed be an injustice and a disaster.
If the Western world lives a peaceful concept of religious practice, it is not the case in other parts of the world where faith and martyrdom are still painfully linked. We see in Christmas an opportunity for family reunion, agape meals and gifts. The Middle-eastern Christians, and also some in Africa and Asia, experience in their flesh the prophecy of Simeon, the old man who had addressed a word to Mary while she was pregnant: “This child shall be …a sign of opposition. And a sword shall pierce your own soul also”.
“Sign of opposition,” are words that all Christians should have in mind when a controversy is created around a topic concerning Christianity, its message or its requirement. It is also that believing in the birth of God incarnate, two thousand years ago in a small town in Judea, is neither something easy nor comfortable.
Far from wanting to end on a low note: The bad news, whether distant or near, should not obscure the essential message of Christmas: That birth in Bethlehem has, since two millennia, been an occasion of joy – and that joy is given to all.
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Le Figaro