Editorial: Time of prayer, hope

Sydney
22 December 2002

Madonna and Christ child by Fra Angelico

Clouds, silver linings and life

Bl Mary in the Eye of the Beholder

Catholic Welfare concern at reforms

Old boys go back to Marist school after 50 years

'Phone home' - a mother's plea

Where do you get it?

What if Egypt's border guards had turned the Holy Family back?

Transport, food need at lunch

Schoolkids deliver petition, armbands and a warning of the plight of kids overseas

Sydney dinner to honour Coptic leader

What do you give a refugee for Christmas?

How the 'Sacred Heart six' came to the rescue

Editorial: Time of prayer, hope

Letters: Euthanasia

Conversation: Stephen Said - pastoral support services co-ordinator - Helping children cope with crisis

Practical tips for the festive season

Roses greet a saint in a year of turmoil

Where Christmas is celebrated every day of the year

Editorial: Time of prayer, hope

Easter maybe the most important celebration in the Church calendar, but in some ways Christmas is the most joyful as it is not overshadowed by the ineffable sadness of the crucifixion, as Easter is.

Sadly, this Christmas, like too many others, is over-shadowed by something else - the threat of war. There is terrifying talk of the possible use of nuclear weapons to bring Iraq into line, so to speak, and, at the same time, there is ongoing violence in Israel and Northern Ireland, not to mention a virtual civil war in Zimbabwe, which is laying waste to what was once the breadbasket of Southern Africa. Many of Zimbabwe's people are now starving.

It is easy to feel helpless in the face of war and hunger, but Christmas is a prayerful time, filled with the music of sublime songs of praise and gorgeous age-old carols - prayers all. And this is the one thing we can do - pray.

In Lent we give. At Christmas we should pray, for it is a time of hope.

Many people scorn prayer, saying it is a useless activity. But a number of clinical studies attest to its power to heal and to keep those who pray hale and hearty.

But it can do more than this. Ultimately, prayer's power lies in its ability to change the human heart, making it softer, more compassionate. Prayerful people become incapable of violence. Only in this way - by a profound softening of the human heart - can peace be born.

It was ultimately to bring peace that Christ was born.

... AND TO WELCOME STRANGERS, TOO

People draw into family groups at Christmas, but it is a time when we should welcome strangers in, too. Jesus' own birth is a story of strangers - Joseph and Mary - going to Bethlehem and finding very little welcome.

This Christian call to give welcome to the stranger becomes particularly insistent at Christmas when those who are estranged feel their loneliness and isolation acutely.

That is why those who can manage it, help out at the Christmas soup kitchen and with Christmas hampers for the needy, and in all the other traditional Christmas ways.

But not everyone can manage this, because of time, money, circumstance or because it can be too much of an emotional ask of some that they help at the soup kitchen or similar.

But what we can all do a bit of is to reach out to others just a little bit more at Christmas, invite neighbours in for a drink, or visit the friends we have almost lost touch with. Our lives slow down a bit at Christmas, giving us time to make our world a little warmer; time to thaw inhuman coldness.