Taking Christmas seriously

Title: Taking Christmas seriously
Language: English
Year: 1969
Rights
Fulltext: EDITORIAL TAKING CHRISTMAS SERIOUSLY Lord, I give you myself this Christmas as an instrument of Peace: Let not this Christmas pass without my bringing a little joy and comfort into the lives of the needy around me: the visible poor: ragged, filthy, shiftless and vulgar, who live a half-life unnoticed in a bleak, hate-filled world: the otherwise needy: the forlorn, lonely, estranged souls around me — These make up the milieu Your Peace must penetrate. Somewhere, somehow, a bit of me must change for the better— I must feel more concern for the outcasts, like the man who threw a Christmas banquet for a crowd of nondescript poor— — “by invitation of Jesus” — and presented each with a Holy Bible 1 must grow more aware of others’ needs in daily life, their moods, their anxieties, oddities and preferences. Above all. I must remain open to the stirrings of the Spirit within me, beckoning me to pierce the skeins of self-interest built up over the years and woven into a strangling layer over the heart — rend the fabric of my carnal affections, prejudices. resentment and malice towards others — This shell must shatter into a thousand fragments. else Peace will remain nothing but a far-away promise. Excerpt from A Thouf/ht-Streal Peace by Fr. Stephen Mendonca, S.J.