Edges Magazine Issue 28 - A Thought For Christmas

EDGES MAGAZINE Issue 28

January 2002

A THOUGHT FOR CHRISTMAS

Father John Michael Hanvey

‘He died in Leicester Square,
His Calvary.
I remember when he kicked a football.
I gave him the bread which said
He’d never die.
We laughed and hugged,
And went our separate ways
To the same place.
To the false kisses and shadows
And empty promises.’

When I wrote it was after the death of a young person I knew, from a drug and methadone overdose. He was seventeen.

Whether it’s one life, or thousands as we are experiencing it, since September 11 in the USA and beyond, the unspeakable pain and incomprehension are the same. It seems that we are faced with humanities Godforsakeness.

R.S. Thomas in his poem ‘Others’, writes:

‘God secreted
A tear. Enough, enough
He commanded, but the machine
Looked at him and went on singing.’

There must be a better song to sing than that which has been going on over the last months, and this is the season when we do a lot of singing. The carols of Christmas call us through their themes of love and peace, to possibilities for our fallen human nature to change. The birth of this child, our God, the Prince of Peace, is the birth of a Saviour and a Redeemer. He saves us from the dragon at the gate of our souls, who would lead us into unspeakable hells. He redeems us, pays the debt that we cannot pay.

No matter what heinous things are going on in the world, we have every right to be joyful at this Christmas time. This is quite simply because, whether its one young person who dies so tragically, or whole nations in the full spate of war, we have a Saviour, we have a Redeemer.

This Saviour and Redeemer is for each of us personally, as well as for humanity as a whole. So, personal experiences of disintegration, problems in relationships, meaninglessness, breakdown in health, breakdown in ministry, call us to a greater consciousness and self-knowledge, to forgiveness and compassion, towards ourselves and others, and therefore to deeper communion with God.

And so, this Christmas Eve, Christ invites us to share in the Mass of the edges, and walk with him this very fractured journey, with confidence.

‘And God held in his hand
a small globe. Look he said.
The son looked. Far off, he saw
A scorched land…a bright serpent
…………On a bare
Hill, a bare tree saddened
The sky, Many people
Held out their thin arms
To it, as though waiting
For a vanished April
To return to its crossed
Boughs. The son watched
Them. Let me go there, he said.’

R.S. Thomas - The Coming