Compassion and hope for 2008

May I say I wish everyone a Happy Christmas and a peaceful New Year 2008. I wish that the experience of the forthcoming celebrations for those of us who are Christians helps us to change our attitudes in our every day life, so that Jesus Christ uses our bodies, spirits, minds and hearts to transform the present world.

A world, which at present is experiencing suffering because there is so much cruelty and where, as a consequence of war and massacres, millions of innocent humans are suffering injustice, violent death and repression.

Let’s particularly make efforts to be engaged to end the violence and wars in the Middle East with attitudes and actions which generate peace and harmony towards each other

Many also are suffering a slow death as a result of the unjust poverty in which they live or because they have been forced to migrate in search of a place to earn a living for themselves and their families.

All they will find this Christmas and New Year will be abuse, exploitation, imprisonment and loss of their lives at the hand of many who profit from them by trafficking, or force them into prostitution, into selling their organs, enslave them into hard work or they will end in prison for trying to cross borders or will lose their lives, just because they are seeking a better life.

To bring it closer to our own cities, wherever we come from, many are dead or dying slowly as a consequence of the loss or death of their dignity; the, often experienced, loss of cultural identity; and the lack of respect for their cultural expressions of faith.

Christmas is a time to remind ourselves to be inclusive, particularly of those who are on the margins of society.

The best we can offer them, in a very practical way, is compassion and hope: the Hope given to us as God’s gift for all humanity and its surroundings. We can bring a “Jesus attitude” to them and allow ourselves to be converted by their suffering, persecution, marginalisation and exclusion.

Among these human persons is where we will find Jesus of Nazareth’s Peace, Hope and Happiness in order to have a meaningful life. Yes, the one whose birthday we are preparing to celebrate and on whom we have been spending a lot of/or some time reflecting on his life: the one who, because of our faith beliefs and convictions, tells us how to live and direct our lives.

We need to meet Jesus Christ in more concrete ways. To experience Him among the farmers who are suffering hardship: the homeless; those who are in economic hardship because of debts; those escaping persecution and war; the vulnerable who are migrating to seek better conditions for their families, often isolated and separated from their loved ones at this time; and particularly those migrant women and children who are trafficked by unscrupulous people who profit from them.

Are we prepared to offer a word of support? Do we think of visiting to give one of those refugee or migrant families a little of our own time? What about visiting an elderly person for a few minutes? Do we ever consider that, for many diverse reasons, there are many immigrants living close to us in total isolation and exclusion?

Well, friends, Jesus Christ is there among them waiting for us to show him some mercy.

Christmas is a real challenge to remind us that, it is by reaching out to those who often live anonymously or are lonely, to assist and befriend them, is where we find the Jesus we believe in, the one who asks us to share hope with all humans, to act with Christian compassion.

I believe those people of compassion and hope who respond to His request, whoever they are, are the best of humanity. They are concrete evidence of Jesus Christ’s birth and presence in our world that continues to deliver transformation from that time until today.

Those who practise Christian love, experience God’s love and love the “poor”, not simply because they are “poor”, but because as fellow humans they must be respected as God’s creation. They defend them. Try to protect them. Listen to them and respond to them. Therefore, because their compassion is not only a “gesture” of love, they act to defend the victims, out of God’s love.

This action generates conflict, persecution and confrontation with structures of power. Their compassion and their concrete conviction that God’s hope can transform the world, makes them ready to face and confront the same suffering experience of those who are victims of sin and cruelty in our world.

There are many ways to express compassion (human rights movements, justice and peace groups, the search for a more “just” world, and so on). These examples invite us to reflect that compassion and hope are possible. It is something that you and I can practice, as Jesus Christ’s disciples, by sharing our lives with those migrants and refugees and disadvantaged people closest to us in the here and now.

It is among those who are forced or decide to migrate, those who are victims of violence, those who are abused, those living marginalised lives or the migrant and refugee who we exclude in our society, that Jesus Christ finds the best expression.

It is there where God looks with infinite love and invites us to bring attitudes of compassion and to deliver hope. Then let’s ensure we wish and share our “Happy Christmas”, the Celebration of Jesus’ Birth, as a gift to the whole world by not being exclusive, discriminatory of others and by accepting with respect our differences.

Since our gift at this time is to share that hope which is transcendent beyond religion, nationality, political affiliation, ideology and to find the dignity of each individual human person. This is the best present for Christmas this year from each one of us to the world.