Diocesan News
Joint Christmas message from the Bishops of Clogher 2006
"The widespread tradition that Jesus was born in winter is a very ancient one and carries with it a profound message. Winter is a cold dark time, a time when we depend on artificial heat and light and, more significantly, on all our reserves of faith and hope that better times are on the way. Christmas is our annual reminder of the source of our faith and hope. It calls us to open ourselves to the light that shines in the darkness.
Christmas invites us to connect again with God. By connecting with God through the Christ-child, we connect with the source of life. For one thing, we give ourselves the only way to deal with bad news. Bereaved families, especially of victims of sudden deaths, recent murders, road accidents and suicides, have a particular and understandable difficulty in reconciling what happened with the presence of a loving caring God. But without God they are more deprived than ever and utterly lost. On the other hand, when they learn again to see God in the kindness and generosity of their friends and neighbours, in the often extraordinary amount of time and trouble taken to accompany them on their lonely road, the painful wounds begin to heal. The coping power of faith restores life.
Nowadays, we have to acknowledge that there are more and more people of influence in our society who would banish God out of public life, and who thereby diminish themselves and all of us. Some are people who see God as irrelevant in the more self-satisfying pursuit of earning and enjoying wealth and prosperity. They have come to see religious practice as out of date, and admit freely to having lost interest, to having other things to do. Sadly, they cannot see the effect of their attitude on society in general, where the figures for violent crime, marriage and family failure, and the level of abuse of alcohol and illegal drugs keep rising all the time. They sorely need to address the question : Why should anyone care about anyone else ? This is a basic and urgent question, not only for home and family but for motorway and shopping centre. It is a question for the public as well as the private arena, for schools, hospitals, sports and leisure facilities, pubs, the media. The answer is surely to be found in a community of values, certainly not in a value-free society, as some commentators claim. The Advent liturgy bids us ?to judge wisely the things of earth and to love the things of heaven.?
Christmas then is about faith, about sharpening our sense of direction or recovering it if we have lost our way. But his feast is much more personal than that, and this is why it continues to fill millions of people with peace and joy. This child is altogether unique. Moreover, he has a unique relationship with each and every one of us, with every member of the human race. He alone is the measure and scale by which we can adequately evaluate our own life. In Christ we will discover the true greatness of our own humanity. Born in humility he will make us understand our own dignity as human beings ?created in the image and likeness of God?.
+Joseph Duffy +Michael Jackson
Further information from the Diocesan Communications Officer, Revd Bryan Kerr, Tel: +44 (0)28 6638 7219