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28-PAGE CHRISTMAS EDITION

Mary and the child Jesus in a 17th-century painting by Il Sassoferrato. (Š Bridgeman Art Library)

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The Southern Cross, December 16 to December 22, 2015

CHRISTMAS

The story behind ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing’ The composer of the melody of one of the most popular Christmas carols didn’t want it used for sacred purposes, and the man who wrote the text didn’t want a jaunty melody for it. GÜNTHER SIMMERMACHER tells the story of “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”.

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NE of the most popular carols in the canon of Christmas song is the jaunty “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”.

Yet, it wasn’t supposed to be cheery, nor was it to be sung at Christmas.

The text of the hymn preceded the melody by a century. It was written by Charles Wesley, brother of John, with whom he founded the Methodist Church. It first appeared in 1739 in a collection titled Hymns and Sacred Poems. The original opening lines were “Hark!

How all the welkin rings. Glory to the King of Kings”.

Like John and their father, Charles was an ordained minister in the Church of England; unlike his brother, Charles opposed a complete break from the Anglican communion. But Charles’ game was not so much the politics of religion as the poetic expression of faith. He wrote more than 6 000 hymns.

When Charles wrote about the

Four hands in one carol spanning more than one century: (from left) Charles Wesley, George Whitefield, William Cummings and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. ringing welkin which would become singing angels, he was still a young vicar.

He had been ordained in 1735.

Three years later, at the age of 30, he experienced the religious conversion which led him and brother John to set up the new Methodist movement. That conversion fuelled Charles’ fervour to write hymns and religious poetry, with a particular focus on the workings of the Holy Spirit.

His “Hark! How all the welkin rings”, however, was aimed at Christmas. The practice of writing Christmas hymns was still in its infancy in Britain, where Christmas—and Christmas carols—had been suppressed by the Puritans just a few decades earlier, from 1649-60, and not exactly encouraged for years thereafter.

The opening words of Wesley’s carol make little sense to modern English-speakers. “Hark” meant to

listen attentively; an alternative form of the now obsolete verb “heark” (from which we derive the modern word “hear”).

“Welkin” meant clouds (related to the Afrikaans and Dutch Wolke, and the German Wolken), but more than that, it indicated the vaults of the heavens in which the angels dwell. So the original title calls on the listener to “hear how the heavens ring”.

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vidently that formulation did not have universal appeal. In 1754 a colleague and rival of the Wesleys, George Whitefield, dropped the ringing welkin and changed the opening words to the now familiar “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”—and he did so without first obtaining Wesley’s permission.

Understandably, Wesley was protective of his works. He wrote: “Many gentlemen have done my

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brother and me...the honour to reprint many of our hymns. Now they are perfectly welcome to do so, provided they print them just as they are.” But should anyone change their words, he sniffed, they should add a disclaimer absolving the Wesleys “for the doggerel of other men”.

Whitefield was an interesting character in his own right. A Methodist of the Calvinist school, he had been a vigorous missionary in the American colonies, where he became friends with Benjamin Franklin. He was one of the first religious leaders to preach to slaves, but he was also a supporter of slavery—its re-legalisation in Georgia was in part due to his campaigning—and kept slaves himself.

“Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” underwent another revision in 1782, six years before Wesley’s death, to give us the final lyrics which we still sing today.

But nobody then sang it to the tune we do today. It was sung in a slow tempo, as one would a solemn hymn, just as Charles Wesley had prescribed it.

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hat changed more than a century after Wesley had written the text.

In 1855, the English musician and tenor William Hayman Cummings adapted a piece of secular music by the German composer Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy.

An organist at the historic Waltham Abbey in Essex, the clas-

sically trained Cummings had as a 16-year-old once been in the choir backing Mendelssohn at a concert in London. He was still only 24 when he used a movement from Mendelssohn’s Festgesang from 1840 to score “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”, giving Wesley’s lyrics the cheery tune which the writer didn’t want.

Mendelssohn would have objected to the use of his melody in a Christmas carol—but by then the genius composer, who is perhaps best-know as the writer of the popular Wedding March, had already been dead for eight years.

Mendelssohn’s relationship with religion was complicated. He was born into a non-practising Jewish family in Hamburg, but he was still a young boy when his parents converted to Reformed Christianity, taking their children with them. While he was proud of his Jewish heritage, and not particularly engaged in his church, he never renounced Christianity.

But the melody which Cummings would adapt for the Christmas carol was meant to be emphatically secular.

The Festgesang was written to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Johann Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press, and was first performed on the market square of Leipzig. Three of the four part-cantata were religious in flavour, but the second movement—the one Cummings used—was secular, beginning with the words” “Vaterland, in deinen Gauen” (“Fatherland, in your provinces”).

Cummings’ adaptation quickly caught on, and “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” is now as much part of the religious celebration of the feast of the Nativity as it is of the cultural festivities.

Given the composer’s express wish was that his melody should be used only for secular purposes, we may feel a tinge of guilt when we sing it in church—but take heart, for we may feel entirely comfortable with Mendelssohn’s intention when we hum along to the tune at the shopping mall. n Brief biographies of hymns and carols at www.scross.co.za/category/ features/biography-of-hymns/

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CHRISTMAS

The Southern Cross, December 16 to December 22, 2015

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Christmas brings light into our lives The birth of the Saviour brings us hope, as WINNIE GRAHAM explains.

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HRISTMAS is a-coming, the goose is getting fat. Why not put a penny in the old man’s hat?”

The words of the much-loved old nursery rhyme date back decades, but, come the festive season, it brings back warm memories of childhood excitement, letters to Santa Claus and the ultimate thrill of finding gifts under the Christmas tree.

The celebration of Christ’s birthday may have become a huge commercial enterprise—despised by the religiously fervent—yet it remains an excellent reminder to rejoice in the anniversary of our Saviour’s birthday.

Does it really matter that it takes hours of shopping for gifts to get people to think about the real meaning of Christmas—particularly when all those hours spent in shops were made with the needs of loved ones in mind?

The December 25 holiday may be old hat for some, yet anyone who spares a thought for its real meaning will find considerable consolation in the joyful memories it evokes.

It has special meaning for youngsters, and for parents who are keen to pass on their faith—and culture— to their children. And what could be more enjoyable than sharing a gift and meal with family and friends?

Though Christians like to think of Christmas as “their” celebration, it has much in common with the Muslim faith, and also the Jewish Passover. The world’s three main religions—Christianity, Islam and Judaism—all worship one God, our Almighty Father.

While the adherents of these religions may not all celebrate Christmas as Christians do, they too rejoice in the family time it makes available. And, along with the goodwill this generates, they share in the

miracles their faith gives them.

At Christmas it is appropriate to examine the impact of Christ’s birth in a manger more than 2 000 years ago.

In South Africa, perhaps the most startling reminder of a modern miracle was the release of Nelson Mandela some years ago. He lived long enough to see the emergence of a new order which, despite ongoing political and social tribulations, remains one of the world’s greatest achievements.

The challenges that have since emerged—crime and unemployment—remain a constant reminder that peace on its own is not simply a gift. It is a goal to strive towards.

It is easy to forget that some 25 years ago the National Party government, then in control, released Nelson Mandela from prison, negotiated a new dispensation for government, and created a multiracial society. It was a miracle of enormous proportions, literally a God-given gift... It’s a miracle, part of the “good news” Christ gives to those who believe.

Miracles, in fact, happen every day but few recognise them. Some are big, some small, many almost insignificant.

A mother, for instance, would call it a miracle if her daughter passes an examination without studying. A father would regard it as a miracle if his son makes the soccer team without practice. These are small events in the life of a family, but they are there to affirm our faith and bring joy, for “miracles” are always associated with good news.

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he New Testament lists numerous miracles performed by Christ as he wandered around his country preaching and healing people. He restored sight to the blind, told the crippled to toss aside their crutches and walk, and the dead to arise. He multiplied the loaves and the fishes and calmed the storm on the Sea of Galilee. All are thrilling miracles.

Yet, when he was arrested and

This 17th-century painting titled “Adoration of the Shepherds” by Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione depicts the birth of Christ. (© Bridgeman Art Library) condemned to death, he did not ask Almighty God to release him from the anguish he knew he was to endure. He prayed instead for strength

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We thank you for your support throughout the years. We invite you to come and spend some time in retreat to deepen your relationship with Christ in the coming year.

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to carry his cross.

His actions provide role models for all people who hope to escape the pain their problems bring. Suffering

is almost an inevitable part of life— just as the giving and receiving of forgiveness also is. With it emerges our humanity, and an element of humility as we recognise our need of a greater power than our own.

We may have a cross to carry, but we also have Christmas to bring light and laughter into our homes.

An essential goodness exists among all people. It’s a sort of shared morality that may take something of a miracle to emerge. Sometimes it is more apparent on the holiest days on the Christian calendar. But it is not simply a religious anniversary such as Christmas that should encourage a love of our fellowman. It should be a habit for all, a fact that is obvious on every day of the year.

Christ’s simple message, “love one another as I have loved you” (Jn 13:34), was not a sentimental cry but a practical call to help those in need, to sustain the hungry and clothe the poor. It calls on all to show our concern for our fellow man. Those who heed it are part of the miracle that sustains us.

A huge miracle is needed to create employment for the millions of young people in search of jobs. The world recession has taken its toll with far too many struggling to survive. The prolonged drought is compounding the problem. The maize crop failed and with it came the fear that the price of South Africa’s staple food will rise. The shortage of water is an ongoing concern, as is the ever increasing price of electricity.

But all is not bad news. In a South Africa beset with problems, another little miracle has emerged. In spite of all, says a US research based company, Gallup, South Africans are generally a happy lot.

That is the keystone of faith and hope for all who believe. Tomorrow will be a brighter day.

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The Southern Cross, December 16 to December 22, 2015

Ten local Catholics share their favourite Christmas memories

Deacon Greg Garnie

Mphuthumi Ntabeni

CHRISTMAS

Sr Phuthunywa Siyali

Merle O'Brien

Fr Russell Pollitt

Paddy Kearney

Lebo WA Majahe

Our most memorable Christmas Deacon Greg Garnie, Boksburg

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he Christmases of 1987 and 1992 hold the most beautiful memories for my wife and me.

1987 was our first Christmas as a married couple and we were blessed to celebrate this joyful season with our first gift from God; our son Brett. 1992 we celebrated Christmas with our second gift from God, our son Keiran.

These two moments really manifest the presence of the Holy Family in our own marriage and family-life, especially when the gift of a new life is made present.

May Joseph, Mary and Jesus continue to guide and bless husbands and wives and their families.

Mphuthumi Ntabeni, Writer & columnist

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ne December night two New Yorker friends and I visited Siankaba Islands in Zambia. While there we met a crew from Big Brother Africa. One of the crew was under tremendous stress because she had just found out that she was pregnant, by one of the producers. He was pressurising her to get an abortion.

We might have been the only black African people in a sea of foreign tourist, so we gravitated towards each another, which is how I learned about her pregnancy. It turned out that we were both Catholic. We decided on enacting the drama of Holy Night around the camp fire on Christmas Eve. It started as a joke, but the filming instinct of the crew

took over soon enough. By midnight some serious discussions, arguments and counter-arguments were going on about the meaning of life; how Mary’s silence of surrendering love ushered the most important event in the history of the universe. References were made about how Mary would have been apprehensive and scared about the future of raising the child alone if Joseph had chosen not to honour the marriage promise.

Later on my friend told me that I had given her the strength “to keep my baby, with or without him�. I think, somehow, I was instrumental in saving a life that Christmas.

Sometimes when I look at my youngest daughter, I think about that life; how, into the silent night, we stood by our convictions amid the discouragements of hostile agnosticism. What a NoĂŤl!

Sr Phuthunywa Siyali HC, SACBC Committee for Culture

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y childhood Christmas is the most memorable one. Christmas was always marked with a celebration of the Christmas Eve

Wishing you peace and joy

Mass and as well as Christmas morning Mass. I grew up in a farm called Mount Carmel in Aliwal North, which belonged to the Holy Cross Sisters I remember as a child I took a role in the Christmas play and I was Mary, the mother of Jesus. What a great honour I had and I could see in the small parish church our parents watching us.

My mother and father were among those who were at Christmas Mass watching me with care and pride. I had such joy in taking a role in that play, more than the n e w Christmas dress I was to wear afterwards.

It made me aware of the gift of family life and belonging to the Catholic Church. I say this because I did not know any other denomination then except the Catholic Church and I thought all Christians were Catholics #laughing# After Christmas Mass, we would be going from house to house in our small farm village, exclaiming, “HAAAPPY�! We would receive from each house a packet of homebaked biscuits and a glass of lovely and refreshing homemade gingerbeer (as we would call it in Afrikaans, gemmer).

By midday we had the Christmas celebration to the full. We would have a special lunch cooked by my eldest sister and still we left room to share the meal at our neighbours, and they would come to

this Christmas and throughout the coming year

our house as well.

This was a free community and open to all. The true spirit of ubuntu was lived out.

Haaaaaa! How I long for those simple yet cherishable Christmas celebrations!

Fr Russell Pollitt SJ, Director: Jesuit Institute

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y most memorable Christmas in the last few years was one I spent in the United States. I was doing what we Jesuits call “tertianship�—our final period of training in which we go back to the basics again. I was in Portland, Oregon, and days before Christmas we had a light snowfall. I was struck by how the natural world set the scene for Christmas.

The days were cold and short— it gets dark just after 4pm. The concept of Jesus the Light entering into a darkened cold world made so much more sense. Twinkling Christmas lights and candles really did lighten up a darkened world. Many of the hymns we sing at Christmas refer to the “cold dark winter’s night�—which is a bit odd when we in South Africa are in the middle of hot summers at Christmas!

It was a memorable Christmas because so much of the symbolism was brought alive. It brought a new dimension to the words and symbols in our Christmas liturgies too.

Merle O'Brien, Futurist: Lacuna Innovation

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hristmas 1989 was magical.

Growing up in Rylands, Cape Town, our O’Brien family attended Midnight Mass at St Mary of the Rosary parish in Hanover Park with Fr Bart Walsh.

This Christmas Eve tradition was followed by champagne, snacks and the exchange of gifts around the tree into the early hours of the morning with my five siblings and parents. Usually, we each bought each other a gift, which meant there were around 50 family gifts under the tree (excluding friends and extended family). All the greetings, guesswork

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and unwrapping took more than an hour filled with laughter, hugs and kisses.

In 1989, after everyone had exchanged gifts, my boyfriend proposed to me. Everyone had been in on the secret all along. I said “yes� and a second round of champagne flowed to celebrate our engagement on that Christmas Day.

Paddy Kearney, Chair: Denis Hurley Centre

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here I was in 1952, ten years old, sitting half asleep in St Mary’s church, Pietermaritzburg, with my parents and two older brothers waiting for Midnight Mass to begin.

Suddenly someone tapped me on my shoulder. “We need an extra altar boy: you must come to the sacristy straight away and get white gloves,� I was told. I was to carry the train of the archbishop’s cappa magna.

How well I acquitted myself in this role and how many times I had to be woken up, I don’t know, but it was my first encounter with someone who was to play a large role in my life—at the other end of that train was the wide-awake, largerthan-life Denis Eugene Hurley.

Lebo WA Majahe, AD News, Johannesburg

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remember as a child sleeping with one eye open to see which gift Santa would bring. We were told that Santa comes into the house, when we were sleeping, though a chimney and drops presents for children before they wake up on Christmas Day. First thing we’d do after waking up was to rush to the Christmas tree and see if we indeed had presents, imagining what might be inside. We were not allowed to open the gifts before we went to Mass, as we each had to thank the Lord for Santa’s generosity and for his remarkable love for children.

The second tradition was that we would gather outside with our grandmother to look at the sun, which every year was brighter and more colourful, as if it was danc-

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Maureen Fernandes & Family Wish all our family, friends, priests and religious a peaceful and Blessed Christmas and New Year full of good health, joy and prosperity.

The Southern Cross, December 16 to December 22, 2015

CHRISTMAS

Visit our Christmas archives Fr Mthembeni Dlamini

ing. We were told that “it’s a sign that Mother Nature was happy and rejoicing for the birth of Christ”.

As an adult it will relate to those family reunions we always had, where everyone would come to share happy memories. It’s usually the time when we get to talk to people whom we haven’t seen the whole year as we share drinks and food.

We will go out of our way to decorate my grandmother’s house, to encourage a Christmassy atmosphere of great happiness and warmth. She passed away in 2013, and as a family we haven’t celebrated as we used to as everybody gets to be sad over her passing.

Since then we all gather at her grave in the morning after the kids watch the sun “dance” and then go to prepare ourselves for Mass.

Kevin Roussel, Director of CWD

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hristmas is very special and I have my parents to thank for always making the Advent season and Christmas Day so memorable.

Christmas 2014 was exceptionally memorable.

Last year I had the opportunity as a new father—my son was born in March 2014—to do for him what my own parents had done for me.

Being only nine months old on Christmas he may not remember all that happened this day but the look on his face every time someone called out his name as he received gifts reminded me of all the joy that I have experienced in my lifetime.

Toni Rowland

Fr Mthembeni Dlamini CMM SACBC & ACTS youth chaplain

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was born on December 24. It was 2007 and I was a new priest.

I was due to celebrate midnight Mass at Queenburgh parish in the archdiocese of Durban.

Perhaps it was because it was my birthday and I was tired, but I fell asleep in the priest’s house, which is near the sacristy. I woke up at exactly midnight.

I quickly made my way to church. I could see people dimly and the parishioners knew I had been asleep. They could see it in my eyes. They all had a good laugh after Mass. They said: “It was your birthday Father. You must have been celebrating.”

That’s a Christmas I will always remember.

Toni Rowland, Family ministry (Marfam) and columnist

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his year 50 years ago on Christmas Eve, my late husband Chris and I became engaged. He didn’t propose that evening but we shared the news, first with my family at our special Christmas Eve dinner, and the next day with the Rowland family at their extended family gathering for Christmas lunch, adults, kids and all.

The cherry on the top for me, as has been the case almost each year for more than the last 50, was the choir and Midnight Mass. No doubt our love and hope for the future resonated deeply with the carol “Joy to the World”.

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The Southern Cross, December 16 to December 22, 2015

CHRISTMAS

Christmas in land of Christ

For Christians from the places of Jesus’ life, Christmas is marked by faith and celebration—but also by checkpoints and injustices.

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OMING to Bethlehem during Christmas is like a family reunion for Afif Hazboun.

He had been standing in front of the Christmas tree in Manger Square for less than ten minutes, and already two cousins had greeted him warmly, exchanging news and pleasantries.

A native of Nazareth, the 48year-old Catholic is following the tradition that his father—who was born in Bethlehem and went to live in Nazareth—began with him as a child: Hazboun brings his wife and children to visit the city every Christmas.

It also warms his heart, said Mr Hazboun, a photographer, to be

able to spend time with so many of his relatives.

“In Nazareth, we are only one Hazboun family,” he said.

The Hazbouns of Bethlehem can’t visit him in Nazareth. His hometown in Galilee is part of Israel, and Mr Hazboun is an Arab Israeli citizen. Bethlehem is in the occupied West Bank, and its residents don’t have free movement from their city, which is entirely encircled by an 8m-high wall.

“My family here [in Bethlehem] can’t come visit me; they need to get special travel permits,” Mr Hazboun explained.

As citizens of Israel, Mr Hazboun and his family said that their own experiences crossing what is known as Rachel’s Tomb checkpoint into Bethlehem have varied. They are normally asked to present their identification cards, and sometimes they are just let through.

“They don’t mind us getting in, they just don’t want us coming out,” Mr Hazboun said.

People gather in Manger Square and the church of the Nativity last Christmas Eve in Bethlehem. The banner on the stage reads: “All I want for Christmas is justice.”

On the return trip, they are usually stopped by the Israeli soldiers at the checkpoint, he said.

In 2014 he took a back way into the city, because the previous year his car was pulled off to the side by Israeli security, the family belongings were taken out and searched, and, he said, they were herded “like cows” into a room for a body check.

“It was disgusting,” he said. “I am an Israeli citizen, and even if I wasn’t, they should respect people.”

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ometimes the queue leaving through the Bethlehem checkpoint is backed up several cars deep and takes a considerable time to get through as the soldiers check everyone who is leaving. There is a separate checkpoint for pedestrians as well.

While technically Israel forbids its citizens from entering the West Bank for their protection—during the intifada some Israelis who mistakenly entered Palestinian cities or were lured into Palestinian territory via the Internet were murdered—Arab citizens of Israel are normally unofficially exempt from the ban.

All Palestinians from the northern West Bank must travel a roundabout road in order to reach Bethlehem, and during the Christmas season, though travel restrictions are eased, Christians must nevertheless have special travel permits to visit Bethlehem.

The Latin patriarchate of Jerusalem said that last year, Israel issued some 25 000 travel permits for West Bank Christians as well as some 700 travel permits for Christians from Gaza for the entire Christmas season, which also encompasses the Greek Orthodox Christmas in January.

Mr Hazboun’s wife, Nardin, 41, a civil engineer, described going through the checkpoint: “It is not a comfortable feeling when they see me as an Arab and stop me.”

Afif and Nardin Hazboun of Nazareth with their sons, Fadi, 20 and Jowan, 8, in front of the Israeli separation wall in Bethlehem, West Bank. Afif Hazboun is following the tradition of yearly Christmas visits, which his father began when Afif was a child. (Photos: Debbie Hill/CNS) Her younger son, Jowan, 8, said he is scared when he sees the soldiers. “They have real guns,” he said.

The Hazbouns used to visit Bethlehem only on the holidays, but since their oldest son, Fadi, 20, began studying cinematography in Bethlehem last year, they come more often. The family members believe the people of Bethlehem are good, but all said there was a nagging fear that someone might harm Fadi Hazboun if they find out he is Israeli.

The parents said they call him often and worry if they are unable to reach him.

Fadi Hazboun said he chose to study at a Palestinian university because he was concerned an Israeli degree would limit his career within the Arab world. Sometimes he travels to Bethlehem alone, and as a young man he is often stopped by the soldiers.

“I am a bit afraid when they stop me; they make me feel like I am doing something wrong,” he said.

“But I am just a person.”

“I feel we belong to this place too,” said Nardin Hazboun. “There is a break between the two holy cities of Nazareth and Bethlehem, and this separation is not natural. I have this feeling of connection with both cities, which are holy to us. I hope someday there will be peace with two states and open borders, like in Europe.”

Mrs Hazboun said two months before her father died last year, he gave blessings to all his children, and for her he wished that she would be able to travel freely back and forth from Bethlehem.

And on Christmas Eve, in addition to her prayers for the health and success of her children, she prays that her father’s blessing will become a reality.—CNS n The December issue of This Week in Palestine magazine is devoted to Bethlehem, including features on Christmas in the city, Bethlehem in the 19th century, and the restorations in the church of the Nativity, and an introduction by the city’s Catholic mayor.

Download a free PDF version of it at www.thisweekinpalestine.com

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The editor and staff of The Southern Cross wish all our readers, advertisers, associates, friends and supporters a blessed and joyful Christmas, and a peaceful 2016.

Now for World Youth Day in SA!

BY STUART GRAHAM

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The children of Leratong Catholic crèche in Bethlehem in the Free State performed the annual Nativity Play in Khotsong church, Bohlokong. Photos from the pre-school’s Nativity Play have appeared frequently in The Southern Cross.

Animal rights charity names Pope Francis ‘Person of the Year’

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EADING British animal rights organisation PETA has named Pope Francis as its Person of the Year”.

Pope Francis was chosen for asking the world’s 1,2 billion Catholics and other citizens of the world “to reject human domination over God’s creation, treat animals with kindness, and respect the environment”.

In his encyclical Laudato Si’, which was released in June, Pope Francis wrote: “Every act of cruelty towards any creature is ‘contrary to human dignity’ [...] We are not God. We must forcefully reject the notion that our being created in God’s image and given dominion over the Earth justifies absolute domination over other creatures.”

PETA managing director Ingrid Newkirk said that during 2015 the pope “spread the message of kindness to all, regardless of their religion or species”.

“With more than a billion Catholics worldwide, Pope Francis’ animal-friendly teachings have a massive audience,” she added.

Pope Francis took his name from the patron saint of animals and the environment, St Francis of Assisi. He is the first religious leader to be named PETA Person of the Year.

A lamb sits around the neck of Pope Francis as he visits a Nativity scene at the church of St Alfonso Maria dei Liguori in Rome in January. A leading animal rights organisation has named the pope its “Person of the Year”. (Photo: L’Osservatore Romano/ Reuters/CNS) Previously the organisation honoured people like politicians Bill Clinton and Tony Benn, and entertainers Oprah Winfrey, Ricky Gervais, Morrissey and Brian May.

OUTH Africa is emerging as a potential candidate to host World Youth Day in 2022, but the local Church has enormous challenges to overcome before it will be ready to host the large crowds at an event of that size, the head organiser of the recent national Youth Day event has told The Southern Cross.

The Church will need to host at least two more mini youth days, like the one held outside of Johannesburg, before it is ready, said Fr Mthembeni Dlamini CMM, national youth chaplain, who arranged this month’s Youth Day at Don Bosco Youth Centre in Walkerville.

“We had a thousand people at the mini youth day and that was difficult enough to manage,” said Fr Dlamini.

“We had enormous challenges. People get hungry and thirsty and you have to make sure there is enough food and drink for them,” he added.

“We are talking about more than a million coming for a World Youth Day. We will have to be ready.”

Fr Dlamini said during his recent visit to Krakow in Poland, to discuss preparations for World Youth Day there next year, he was approached by numerous delegates who told him that South Africa was the likely candidate to host the 2022 World Youth Day. “Nothing was officially mentioned by the organising team, but many people I spoke to, whenever I said I am from South Africa, they would say, ‘We hear South Africa is going to host World Youth Day’.”

South Africa reportedly bid to host World Youth Day in 2008; it was held in Sydney, Australia instead. It has never been held in Africa.

Fr Dlamini said the rumours suggest an international hope that South Africa will host a Word Youth Day. This alone should encourage the Church to host more mini youth days.

“If such rumours are true, it gives us reason to say let us try again. We know there are challenges, so let us have something bigger and better,” Fr Dlamini said.

“We need sponsorships for a start and we need young people to work to get sponsors.

It shouldn’t depend only on chaplains. We need a whole team of young people to work on arranging the event,” the priest said.

“What I learned from this year’s event is that teamwork is vital.”

Fr Dlamini said while the three-day Youth Day at the Don Bosco Centre was joyous, enormous food and drink challenges arose during the event.

Suppliers failed to arrive with drinks, while food was in short supply on the opening day as confusion arose over meal tickets, he said.

Another problem related to people coming to join the event without having registered.

“Even the security guards we hired struggled with the different characters who turned up. Some people just come for fun.

Some had no interest in taking part in the events. The programme would start and they would be walking in the opposite direction.”

Bishop Victor Phalana of Klerksdorp noted on his Facebook account that some people who had registered had failed to arrive. Since places at the event were limited, this meant that the non-arrivals deprived others who might have wanted to go of a place.

Masses were celebrated by Bishop Phalana and Bishop Xolele Thaddeus Kumalo of Eshowe, the bishop responsible for youth.

Archbishop Stephen Brislin, president of the Southern African Bishops’ Conference, celebrated the final Mass.

Several bishops were in attendance, with Bishop Stanislaw Dziuba of Umzimkulu posting photos of the event in real time on Facebook.

Several choirs performed. Fr Dlamini said they “were well prepared and the music was excellent”.

The event also included catechesis, discussions in language groups and a healing service.

Despite logistic problems, the mood at the Youth Day was joyful, he said.

“Saturday especially was a very good day and you could see the youth singing. Everyone was happy. We were in the big tent. We were coughing from the dust that was rising from the dancing,” Fr Dlamini said.

“People were enjoying themselves, celebrating and singing, even as they queued for meals,” he said.

Higher Education minister Blade Nzimande, a Catholic who was due to speak at the event, cancelled shortly before, citing a death in his family. n See page 8 for a spread of photos from the national Youth Day.

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8

The Southern Cross, December 16 to December 22, 2015

CHRISTMAS

SA Youth Day in pics

These photos, all but one courtesy of BISHOP STANISLAW DZIUBA of Umzimkulu, provide a taste of the vibe at Southern Africa’s Youth Day celebration at the Don Bosco Centre near Johannesburg.

Some of the participants at Youth Day before Mass celebrated by Bishop Xolele Thaddeus Kumalo of Eshowe, the liaison bishop for youth.

Some of the clergy and bishops at Youth Day, including Bishop Xolele Thaddeus Kumalo (with mitre) and Bishop Dziuba (far left). Also there, but not pictured, was Archbishop Stephen Brislin, president of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference, who was the chief celebrant at the closing Mass.

Above: Priests lay hands on Youth Day participants at a healing Mass.

Left: One of the language groups in discussion.

Bishop Vincent Zungu OFM

The Coptic Orthodox Church choir from Egypt performed at Youth Day. Choirs from several regional clusters also sang during the three-day event.

Youth Day participants look at a display of the Comboni Missionaries. The event gave various Catholic organisation an opportunity to highlight their work. (Photo: Robert Ochola-Lukwiya MCCJ)

People must eat! Here a Youth Day Akani Malobola of Radio Veritas and participant of the Durban cluster en- Miss Commonwealth contestant joys a meal.

Yena Khuboni at Youth Day.

Bishop-elect Victor Phalana

LOCAL

The Southern Cross, December 16 to December 22, 2015

9

Doors open for Year of Mercy STAFF REPORTER

T Capuchin Father Kees Thönissen OFM Cap, graduated as Doctor of Theology at UNISA. Fr Thönissen is based at Padre Pio Spirituality Retreat Centre in Pretoria. He is also the director of the Damietta Peace Initiative.

HE Year of Mercy is an invitation to welcome God’s merciful love into our lives and to witness it with words and actions, a bishop told the congregation at a Year of Mercy launch in KwaZuluNatal.

Speaking in the cathedral of the Good Shepherd and Our Lady of Sorrows in Hlabisa, the vicariate of Ingwavuma’s administrator, Bishop José Luis Ponce de León of Manzini, said that the theme chosen for the Jubilee Year by Pope Francis—“Be merciful like the Father” (Luke 6:36)—“is not only an invitation to welcome God’s merciful love in our lives but to witness it with our words, actions... our

whole lives”.

“Each sodality and pastoral area—catechists, youth, Justice & Peace—have been asked to let us know how they plan to ‘be merciful like the Father’,” the bishop said.

At the cathedral’s door, those who attended proclaimed: “Open the gates of justice, we shall enter and give thanks to the Lord” (Psalms 118:19).

After the bishop opened the doors, the congregants proclaimed: “This is the Lord’s gate, let us enter through it and obtain mercy and forgiveness.”

“We slowly proceeded inside the cathedral,” Bishop Ponce de León said.” It was only then I realised it was absolutely full, with people

standing outside.”

Mass ended with the singing of the “Salve Regina” entrusting this time of grace to the intercession of the Mother of Mercy.

The Catholic Church has called on parishes around the country to open a holy door in their own church as a gesture of mercy.

In the document that proclaimed the Holy Year of Mercy, Misericordiae Vultus, Pope Francis said he hoped that all the faithful would have a genuine experience of God’s mercy, which comes to meet each person in the face of the Father who welcomes and forgives, “forgetting completely the sin committed”.

The Year of Mercy will run until the end of November 2016.

Bishop José Luis Ponce de León of Manzini opened the doors in the Ingwavuma cathedral of the Good Shepherd and Our Lady of Sorrows in Hlabisa.

Aids caregivers empowered by a retreat T STAFF REPORTER

HE SACBC Aids Office has received funding to support spiritual retreats for caregivers working in Aids projects and grandparents taking care of Aids orphans and children affected by the disease.

“As one can imagine, it can be quite stressful for everyone concerned, dealing with sickness and dying, and then having to make ends meet in what are often poor households where few if any of the adults are employed,” said Aids Office director Sr Alison Munro OP. “Sometimes all the members of the household are dependent on the social pension of just one person, and in some cases on a grant received to support a child.”

Sr Munro said that participants in the retreats “were full of enthusiasm for the time they were being offered to reflect on their own lives”.

They looked at the sometimes harrowing circumstances in which they live, on their work situations and on how they cope with difficulties in their own families, she said.

“They are not afraid in the safe environment of the retreat to acknowledge that, in fact, what they confront in their work situation often mirrors what they experience in their own families,” the Dominican said.

They’ll say: “We have family members also infected with HIV”, or “In fact some of us are also infected and we are on antiretroviral treatment.”

One retreatant, identified only as Anna, said: “I too am afraid to tell my child why he has to take medication daily when his friends don’t, even though deep down I know that if treatment is to work, everyone needs to know and understand why adherence is important.”

Anna added: “He doesn’t see me taking my medication, so now it’s harder still to talk. I need to find the courage and the right time to be able to sit down with him and tell him the whole story.”

An unidentified retreatant said: “I am struggling right now with tension in my family since my partner is not making a contribution to the household budget, but expects his meals and everything else. He is drinking the money he earns and it’s

very challenging to the rest of us.”

She added: “I am also scared of violence. He did beat me once for no apparent reason. But I have nowhere to go and so I can’t leave him. Also I am scared for my children’s safety.”

A grandmother shared her story.

She is looking after 12 children, some of them very young and not yet at school. Two of her own children died and left her struggling to keep the family together. Three of the children, she said, are not her grandchildren, “but there was no one else to care for them”.

The retreatants share their stories, their life journeys, and their faith, Sr Munro said.

“They enter the theme of the retreat, often linked to a healing mes-

sage in the Gospel, listening to those who lead the sessions, consoling one another in group sessions, deepening their prayer, experiencing forgiveness, participating in the Eucharist and in healing services,” Sr Munro explained.

“They learn new methods of praying and meditating, and appreciate the times of silence on their own.”

Inevitably the consensus is that the time of retreat is too short, that the experience needs to be repeated later in the year, Sr Munro said.

“What also strikes us is that everyone says she feels called to renew her own commitment,” she observed, adding that retreatants will say things like: “It’s where I am meant to be, what God is asking of me at this time in my life.”

Oblate lay associates from the congregation’s about to be amalgamated three South African provinces met at Parnassus Farm in Magalisburg for the first-ever retreat. Retreat master Fr Thabang Nkadimeng OMI preached the retreat on the theme “The Interior Castle”, reflecting how a lay person can live the Oblate spirituality in everyday life.

Catholic university braces for tough 2016

BY STUART GRAHAM

S

AINT Augustine College in Johannesburg, South Africa’s only Catholic university, remains in “turbulent times” with concerns over finances continuing, its president said in a Christmas letter to staff and students.

The university is introducing a range of strategies to improve its financial position, Prof Garth Abraham said. “We have a number of initiatives aimed at growing an endowment fund and resourcing a bursary scheme; our facilities are being configured to provide alternative revenue streams; fund raising, from both local and international sources, remains a priority,” he wrote.

One of the initiatives includes the relaunch in 2016 of St Augustine’s undergraduate programme with degree offerings in the humanities (BA) and theology (BTh).

“Initiatives of these kinds, however, do not yield immediate results;

fortitude is demanded,” said Prof Abraham, who started as the president of St Augustine in August, succeeding Sr Madge Karecki who had resigned last year due to illness.

Sr Karecki secured financial assistance for the college from the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference and the Knights of Da Gama, which enabled St Augustine to remain in operation at its current location in Victory Park, Johannesburg.

At her resignation, Sr Karecki said a “formidable challenge” was to ensure the enrolment of more students.

Before joining St Augustine, Prof Abraham taught law at undergraduate level.

He paid tribute to the staff for their determination during the tough time. “Despite the disquiet, in the short time that I have been at St Augustine, I have had the opportunity to witness the effort, creativity and determination of many to reverse our misfortune,” he said.

We wish all our listeners and supporters a Happy and Holy Christmas.

We thank you very much for your support in 2015 and wish you God’s blessings in 2016!

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10

The Southern Cross, December 16 to December 22, 2015

INTERNATIONAL

Prayer ad before ‘Star Wars’ nixed in UK

BY CAROL GLATz

E

VEN a leading atheist voiced his disapproval of a decision by British cinemas to ban an advert showing people reciting the Lord’s Prayer.

The Anglican Church had planned to show an ad of the Lord’s Prayer in cinemas before the new “Star Wars” movie, but the ad was rejected by the three major cinema chains in Britain: Odeon, Cineworld and Vue. They said they could not carry religious ads because such ads risked upsetting or offending audiences.

Richard Dawkins, an atheist polemicist, objected to the idea that the Lord’s Prayer ads should be barred on the ground they could be offensive.

“If anybody is ‘offended’ by something so trivial as a prayer, they deserve to be offended,” he told The Guardian.

Sheikh Ibrahim Mogra, assistant secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said he was “flabbergasted” that anyone would find the prayer offensive.

Actress Carrie Fisher, who returns to play Princess Leia Organa in The Force Awakens,” compared the ad to the placement of Bibles in hotel rooms.

“I have never seen an advertisement like this, but if the theatre is like a hotel room, then they have every right to put up a power of prayer advert,” she said.

The new “Star Wars” movie opens in Britain on December 17.

Archbishop Justin Welby of Canterbury, primate of the Church of England, said at the time of the cin-

Catholics urged to take part in Year of Mercy L

The Lord’s Prayer is reproduced in Afrikaans at Paternoster church in Jerusalem. (Photo: Günther Simmermacher) emas’ decision that it was “extraordinary” that an ad for prayer would be found inappropriate to be shown the week before Christmas.

“Billions of people across the world pray this prayer on a daily basis. I think they would be astonished and deeply saddened by this decision. This advert is about as ‘offensive’ as a carol service or church service on Christmas Day.” Archbishop Welby appears in the minute-long ad, as do Christians from all backgrounds, praying the Our Father. n To see the advert, go to www.bit.ly/1LtSOjJ

AUNCHING the Year of Mercy, Pope Francis said “this will be a year in which we grow ever more convinced of God’s mercy”.

In his homily at the Mass in St Peter’s basilica which inaugurated the Year of Mercy and also celebrated the feat of the Immaculate Conception, the pope said that “this Extraordinary Holy Year is itself a gift of grace”.

Before he opened the basilica’s Holy Door, which remains closed in between holy years, the pope said that to “pass through the Holy Door means to rediscover the infinite mercy of the Father who welcomes everyone and goes out personally to encounter each of them”.

Saying that this year the faithful become “ever more convinced of God’s mercy,” Pope Francis paraphrased St Augustine of Hippo: “How much wrong we do to God and his grace when we speak of sins being punished by his judgment before we speak of their being forgiven by his mercy”.

“But that is the truth,” he said.

“We have to put mercy before judgment, and in any event God’s judgement will always be in the light of his mercy.”

Calling for the year to be one of transformation, he said: “Let us set aside all fear and dread, for these do not befit men and women who are loved. Instead, let us experience the joy of encountering that grace which transforms all things.”

Elaborating on the metaphor of

A worker installs a surveillance camera in front of the Vatican. (Photo: Max Rossi, Reuters/CNS) doors, Pope Francis also noted that the day was the 50th anniversary of the closing of the Second Vatican Council.

“This anniversary cannot be remembered only for the legacy of the Council’s documents, which testify to a great advance in faith. Before all else, the Council was an encounter… between the Church and the men and women of our time,” the pope said.

He added that this encounter was “marked by the power of the Spirit, who impelled the Church to emerge from the shoals which for years had kept her self-enclosed so as to set out once again, with enthusiasm, on her missionary journey”.

“It was the resumption of a jour-

ney of encountering people where they live: in their cities and homes, in their workplaces,” Pope Francis said. “After these decades, we again take up this missionary drive with the same power and enthusiasm. The Jubilee challenges us to this openness, and demands that we not neglect the spirit which emerged from Vatican II.” Whether in Rome or at home, Catholics will have a variety of ways to take part in the Year of Mercy.

The Pontifical Council for the Promotion of New Evangelisation, the office organising events for the Holy Year, presented details about some of the events planned at the Vatican and the services available for pilgrims.

During the Year of Mercy the pope will carry out a symbolic gesture related to one of the works of mercy on one Friday of every month during the Holy Year.

• Recitation of the rosary in front of the statue of St Peter in St Peter’s Square.

• The pope will hold a special general audience one Saturday a month.

• Special confessionals with wheelchair access will be available in St Peter’s basilica and other Rome churches.

• Pilgrims may walk through the Holy Door at St Peter’s • Pope Francis has asked that Doors of Mercy be opened in every cathedral, major church or sanctuary in the world so that people can experience a pilgrimage near their own homes.

INTERNATIONAL

The Southern Cross, December 16 to December 22, 2015

11

Bishops to drug traffickers: Convert!

T Three Catholic missionary priests have been beatified as martyrs in Peru, 24 years after their murder by Maoist Shining Path guerrillas in 1991.

Polish Conventual Franciscan Fathers Michal Tomaszek, top left, zbigniew Strzalkowski and Italian Father Alessandro Dordi, are pictured at their beatification Mass in Chimbote, Peru. (Photo: EPA/CNS)

Pope blesses ‘car chapel’

A

MARIAN chapel built into a car—called an “Autocappella”—received a blessing from Pope Francis before a general audience in St Peter’s Square.

The mobile chapel belongs to the “Marian Mission of the Rosary of the Shrine of Pompeii” and carries an icon of the Virgin of Pompeii to dioceses around the world.

At the request of a diocese, the mission brings copies of the icon and organises prayer and evangelisation activities at parishes, schools, hospitals and prisons.

So far, the mission has been to several countries including Italy, the United States, Canada, Australia and Malta.

The original image of Our Lady

(Photo: L’osservatore Romano) of the Rosary of Pompeii is located in the town of Campania, an area located about five minutes away from the ruins of the city of Pompeii, which was destroyed in 79 AD when the volcano Mount Vesuvius erupted.—CNA

HE Argentinian bishops’ conference has issued “a strong call to conversion” to those involved in drug trafficking and dealing, urging them to take advantage of the Church’s Jubilee Year of Mercy.

“We are especially addressing those who belong to criminal groups, those who look with indifference upon the tragedy their brothers are going through, those who are collaborating by omission or commission in the spread of this scourge,” the bishops said.

Their appeal came in their message, “No to drug trafficking, yes to the fullness of life”—a message that has application also in other countries too, including South Africa.

The bishops called for efforts to combat the plague of drug trafficking in their country. They warned that its presence and spread entails the complicity of power “in its various forms”.

They also warned of “the gravity of the situation our country is facing on this issue” and reminded all of society of “the need for urgent conversion”.

This transformation, they explained, “can’t be understood from just one aspect [since] any response on just one level will turn out to be just as inefficient as it is useless”.

The bishops emphasised that drug trafficking is “a business of global dimensions, that extends its

network into governments, businesses and multiple sectors of society”.

They connected drug trafficking with the “global culture of consumerism” which “creates unsatisfied desires and imposes on our countries a market with an inadequate scale of values”.

This consumerist culture “is constantly sending out the false notion that without having certain things you can’t be happy”.

The bishops connected this to the “globalisation of indifference”, a frequently-used phrase of Pope Francis. They said this phenomenon “creates an individualistic culture based on consumption which creates a favourable framework for the expansion of drug trafficking networks”.

“Drug trafficking is conducted in the most brutal spirit of capitalism and the idolatry of money: it’s inseparable from them,” they reiterated.

A

rgentina is seeing a rise in the manufacture and use of a drug called paco, a highly addictive cocaine-based drug that is smoked like crack.

The bishops referred to “the growing number of people who make paco, or other very harmful preparations at home”. They lamented that these small-scale manufacturers then act “without any scruples to the outrageous point of sending out their own

children or grandchildren to sell drugs”.

This reality, they said, offends against the Fifth Commandment, “Thou shalt not kill”. At the same time, they said drug dealers are more morally culpable than “the poor kid who’s finally used to deliver the drugs”.

One response to drugs is to have the “best possible security forces”. But the bishops emphasised that the most appropriate response is “a profound cultural transformation”.

“Drug trafficking ensures the success of the person who with little effort gains a lot and who’s outside the law,” they stated. This discourages those who try to succeed through honest work.

The bishops called on legislators and members of the judiciary to take responsibility for these situations. They called for strong and appropriate policies to eliminate drug trafficking and sales.

They called upon “all the People of God and so many people of good will” to fight against drug trafficking. They also called for a commitment to care for those who are suffering from drug use “directly or indirectly”.

“The Church wants to be close to families who are hurting because some of their members are addicted to drugs,” they added.— CNA

The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; for you have found favour with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call him Jesus.”

Luke 1:30-31 St Benedict’s wishes you and your family a blessed Christmas.

May you experience the birth of Christ in a special way.

12

The Southern Cross, December 16 to December 22, 2015

LEADER PAGE The Editor reserves the right to shorten or edit published letters. Letters below 300 words receive preference. Pseudonyms are acceptable only under special circumstances and at the Editor’s discretion. Name and address of the writer must be supplied. No anonymous letter will be considered.

Editor: Günther Simmermacher

Guest editorial by Fr Patrick Rakeketsi CSS

His name is God with us

‘O

Emmanuel” is the seventh and last “O” antiphon. “Emmanuel” is the Greek form of the Hebrew “Immanuel”, a compound name of the words immanu, meaning “with us”, and El, meaning God. According to the Prophet Isaiah, Emmanuel, born of a virgin, will come as a divine response to the impatience of the people of Israel about their God (Isaiah 7:14). Thus the name Emmanuel is a guarantee of God’s presence and provision throughout human history and the destiny of the human pilgrimage.

The name Emmanuel is given to Jesus (Matthew 1:23) to confirm the presence of God among his people, and to fulfil the covenant promise to Moses: “I will be with you” (Exodus 3:12).

Before his ascension into heaven, Jesus assured his disciples: “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).

Indeed, God is always with us.

Christmas is a constant reminder about Emmanuel, the continuous memorial of his presence and the anticipation of his second coming.

When they least expected him, Jesus came, born in humble circumstances, reminding us of the virtue of humility for all humanity.

Jesus breaks into our lives. He comes to us in various ways: in times of joy, sadness, despair or hope. When we seek him in prayer, he comes to rejoice with us, to comfort us, to share humanity with us. Jesus is part of our ubuntu; he is our Saviour.

Because he is God among us, Jesus fulfils our salvation.

In the epistles of Christmas season, we are told that salvation has been given and now has appeared among us. It is offered to all people, and it brings with it the hope and promise of righteousness.

Salvation is not our achievement, it is a free gift of God. Without Emmanuel, there is no salvation—if God is not with us, we are not saved.

This moment of Emmanuel has a particular significance in this Year of Mercy.

Pope Francis has expressed his wish that the “jubilee be a living experience of the closeness of the Father, whose tenderness is almost tangible, so that the faith of every believer may be strengthened and thus testimony to it be ever more effective.”

The pope is asking the Church to “rediscover the richness encompassed by the spiritual and corporal works of mercy. The experience of mercy, indeed, becomes visible in the witness of concrete signs as Jesus himself taught us”.

Jesus’ continuous presence confirms his mercy upon us.

Jesus is Emmanuel, the one who reveals the love, mercy and friendship of God. He does not come to condemn us; he is like a refiner, purifying us as precious gold and silver in the fire of his love. He is also inviting us to show mercy to one another, to express forgiveness and meekness to each other.

Even though to many people Christmas looks more of a market-oriented event of shopping sprees, holidays and food for many people, it remains an event of faith. It marks a moment of God in our lives.

The Christmas cycle is a proclamation of the presence of God in human history. It tells us that something definitive has happened in history, and it is a work of God. This moment is a gift that can be received by all people of good will, a universal gift extending to all the nations.

This gift, when received in faith, forms us into a community whose centre is Emmanuel, God with us.

And so, during Christmas we need to affirm our faith in him.

He brings joy to the families, he comforts those who are afflicted, he encourages those in distress and depression, he unites those who are divided, he heals those who are sick, he empowers the marginalised.

His name is Emmanuel, God with us. n Fr Patrick Rakeketsi CSS is the associate secretary-general of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference.

NAZARETH

Recycling puts encyclical to work We have two seminarians, one OPE Francis’ encyclical letter P Laudato Si’ (“On care for our from each corridor, who are in common home”) is all about caring charge of recycling. Each corridor for the environment and how we as human beings are failing in this regard, but there is still hope and we can still make a difference in small things, such as recycling.

At St Francis Xavier Orientation Seminary in Cape Town, the staff and we seminarians take this very seriously. We believe that by doing our part, even if it’s just small, we can make a difference in the long run.

At the seminary we do our best to care for our common home, that is why we recycle paper, glass, metal and plastic. We recycle other materials too, such as wood for compost.

Deaconess Phoebe revered by St Paul

A

MONG the Mass readings for November 7 were St Paul’s letter to the Romans (16:3-9), but I noticed with some surprise that verses 1-2 were not included in the reading.

The excluded verses read as follows: “I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deaconess of the Church at Cenchreae. Give her, in union with the Lord, a welcome worthy of saints, and help her with anything she needs: she has looked after a great many people, myself included.”

Verses 3-9 continue as follows: “My greetings to Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, who risked death to save my life: I am not the only one to owe them a debt of gratitude, all the churches among the pagans do as well. My greetings also to the Church that meets at their house.

“Greetings to my friend Epaenetus, the first of Asia’s gifts to Christ; greetings to Mary who worked so hard for you; to those outstanding apostles Andronicus and Junias, my compatriots and fellow prisoners, who became Christians before me.”

Paul seems to treat male and female with equal respect.

It certainly started me thinking about all the discussions put forward, mainly by the male members of the Church, justifying not ordaining women as deacons.

If Paul thought so highly of Phoebe as a deaconess of the Church, who are we males to say “no” to women who have such a calling. Move with the times!

In the Church’s activities in areas such as climate change, Justice & Peace, human trafficking, women

HOUSE

The Sisters, Staff and Residents of Durban, wish Our Cardinal, Bishop, Clergy, Religious friends and the Editor of the Southern Cross,

PEACE, JOY and NEW LIFE this Christmas and New Year We thank our benefactors and co workers for your prayer and your support over the past year and for helping us to keep our “Mission Alive” in caring for the Aged and less fortunate in need of care Nazareth House 82 Mazisi Kunene Road, Durban. Kwazulu Natal, Phone: 031 261 2207, www.sistersofnazareth.com/southern/africa

has two bins, one for rubbish and the other for recycling materials.

On Saturdays we separate the items in the bins, and put them into black bags to be taken away.

Pope Francis calls us to be people who care for and love creation. The earth is God’s handiwork and he made it for us to live in, to take care of and to use its resources for the common good of all.

If I do my bit today and you do your bit tomorrow, everybody will join in and do their bit. Therefore, together we will make the world a better “home” for all. and child abuse, the majority of the driving activists are women.

Isn’t it time that we males finally admit that apart from physical strength, women are equal in every respect—and maybe even somewhat superior, in that they can conceive and bear children?

Because of this I think the world would be a better place if governed by far more women. They think with their heads and their hearts, whereas men tend mainly to think only with their heads.

Interestingly, it would appear that most terrorists are male, and that they do not respect women.

Quite a thought, isn’t it?

Antonio G Tonin, East London

Meditation not to be mocked

R

EFERRING to the letter “No place for New Age meditation”

by Fr Finbarr Flanagan OFM (November 25), I wish to respectfully point out that secular meditation and yoga have and continue to help thousands enjoy peace of mind and fitness of body.

To make statements like “kundalini yoga can kill and lead to insanity” without offering any supporting evidence is misleading.

Most Westerners do yoga as an excellent form of cultivating a healthy Opinions expressed in The Southern Cross, especially in Letters to the Editor, do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editor or staff of the newspaper, or of the Catholic hierarchy. The letters page in particular is a forum in which readers may exchange opinions on matters of debate.

Letters must not be understood to necessarily reflect the teachings, disciplines or policies of the Church accurately.

“Active love heals all wounds”.

Blessed Adolph Kolping (1813-1865)

The grace of the new-born Son of God is with us in a special way during this time of Christmas. May His light shine in our deeds, in our words and in our works every day through the intercession of Blessed Adolph Kolping.

Fr Christian Frantz, on behalf of the Members, the Board and the Staff of Kolping South Africa, wishes all the readers of the Southern Cross a happy and peace-filled Christmas time and a New Year filled with prosperity.

For Info Contact: marketing@kolpingsa.co.za Tel: 021-9759722 Or visit www.kolpingsa.co.za

Staff and seminarians do their bit to put Laudato Si’ to work.

“In the meantime, we come together to take charge of this home which has been entrusted to us, knowing that all the good which exists here will be taken up into the heavenly feast” (Laudato Si’ 244).

Mitchell M Cloete, St Francis Xavier Seminary, Cape Town body and have no interest whatsoever in developing “psychic or occult powers” through its practice.

Fr Flanagan proceeds to make negative comments about Frs John Main, Thomas Keating and Bede Griffiths, who promoted the Centring Prayer method. It must be remembered that the practice of meditation/centring prayer had virtually become a lost tradition within Christianity, and they helped to revive the contemplative tradition, and very successfully bring it to lay people in the Western world.

Fr Flanagan says: “Christian prayer is not an exercise in self-contemplation, stillness and self-emptying.” Yet, Christian meditation shifts the focus off oneself and in this sense it is a letting go of self and indeed an act of self-emptying.

The aim is to replace our usual egocentric focus with a Christ-centred focus. The goal of Centring Prayer is not to empty the mind, but to centre it on Christ, and allow it to be filled with the love and presence of Christ who is encountered in the silent depths of our hearts.

Fr Flanagan’s warning that “if we don’t be careful we could lose all our children to the New Age Movement” highlights what is missing and necessary within the Christian tradition. People need to be taught how to have personal experience of the presence of God and not just knowledge about God, which will never satisfy the soul.

If the Christian tradition fails to teach people meditation, they will turn to other traditions to learn this great skill. I myself had to learn meditation from other sources, and now teach Centring Prayer within the Christian tradition.

Leela Verity, Plettenberg Bay

HOLY SPIRIT CENTRE (CATHOLIC CHARISMATIC RENEWAL WESTERN CAPE)

We wish the Catholic Renewal and all our patrons a blessed Christmas and abundant blessing in 2016.

From management and staff

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PERSPECTIVES

What? No midnight Mass?

O NE of the seasonal irritations of any parish office happens around this time.

“Father, what time is midnight Mass?”

“Um, I don’t know. Last year we tried 1:30pm, but the reindeers skidded on the icy lawn… Not sure if we would handle that again.”

The sad thing is that some believe the stories we build up. “Oh, ok then. We’ll see you at the children’s Mass at 7pm then.

Would that be full, Father?”

As a freshly-minted, newly-oiled young priest in Soweto 15 years ago, it came as a shock that midnight Mass didn’t happen at all. It’s so much part of the way I had done Christmas, that for the first year it was a glaring omission.

In subsequent years, I celebrated midnight Mass in my home parish of Rivonia.

It just wasn’t Christmas without the experience of midnight Mass, when everyone was in good cheer (many in a bit too good cheer to be driving!). And the garlic!

WHOAH! Thank God for incense! Just hope you didn’t get anyone asking for Confession.

Sadly, in many places the custom of midnight Mass is dying out. As the Church ages and we grow in fear of the security situation—ever notice how South Africans speak security like the English speak weather—we have allowed ourselves to be cowered into safe and convenient times.

So the question then becomes quite justified: “What time is midnight Mass?”

This is the crux of the problem. The feast of the Incarnation is about a dawning brightness. Whether or not the Church appropriated pagan feasts for this day and how in the Northern Hemisphere it is really the turning point of the dead of winter, we can still claim this space as our own. In the gloom that is our fears and insecurities—many deeply justified—we have a moment of tender hope.

O

ne of the joys of my ministry is the power of intergenerational relationships. Families reinvigorate themselves

In South Africa, “What time is midnight Mass?” has become a legitimate question.

Christmas all year round

C

HRISTMAS is not just once a year.

“It is Christmas every time you let God love others through you… yes, it is Christmas every time you smile at your brother and offer him your hand.”

These are the words of Bl Mother Teresa.

Serving others, as Mother Teresa states, is the simplest way of us letting God touch the lives of others, and also touch our own lives. We grow spiritually by serving others.

Christ was born on this earth, just like billions before him, and billions after him.

But he came to teach us something that will redeem us. He came to teach us to serve. At Christmas time it is especially significant to remember this, because whenever we serve, we bring Christ to others, just like he came to us on his Nativity more than 2 000 years ago.

Service changes people. It brings out the best in each one of us. It gets us looking outward instead of inward. It prompts us to consider others’ needs ahead of our own.

In South Africa we have many opportunities for service. There is a multitude of organisations which need people and which are looking for people willing to give their service. There are organisations that do good to others, such as churches and non-governmental organisations, but that do not have the budget to pay salaries. Therefore they are looking for people who are willing to give their time and skill freely, voluntary, for no reward or compensation.

Does this actually happen? It certainly does, and it happens all the time all over South Africa.

I have visited, churches, non-govern-

Volunteering means it’s Christmas all year around. mental organisations and communitybased organisations in all nine provinces of South Africa. I have come across people who might be called angels or messengers of the Good News in most of these organisations. Men and women, who themselves have very little, but who have powerhouses of generosity within them to share with others.

Some of them have told me that they had been volunteering for years. The jobs that volunteers do range from menial little tasks such as folding envelopes to real face-time tasks with a person in need, such as home-based care or lay counselling.

W

hatever the task, it firstly lightens the burden on the organisation, and, more importantly, it brings Christ to the people. It allows people to experience the helping, loving, caring hand of God. It allows people to experience Christmas.

I recently visited a group of volunteers in Montagu, a small town in the diocese of Oudtshoorn, about 180km from Cape Town. A town full of beautiful people who

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The Southern Cross, December 16 to December 22, 2015

Fr Chris Townsend

Pastor’s Notebook

with children and older people take on a new lease of life when there are young persons around. Maybe this is exactly what the Church needs.

No one asks the natural delivery mom to wait for a convenient and safe hour for the child to arrive. Quite the opposite.

While we vaguely know the region of birth, we still have the thrill of anticipation and realisation. This is the anticipation and realisation that is Christmas to me.

In the dark times of an economic recession that no one has the courage to officially name, a drought with its consequent water- and food-security issues, student unrest, a bloated and unresponsive government and all those who take issue with it, we all need to be called to the beatitudes.

How blessed (or in the translation by Fr Nicholas King SJ, “congratulated”) are the gentle. For they shall inherit the earth.

It is once again to the gentle that the world belongs. The gentle by choice and the gentle by circumstance. It is the pure of heart—those who see with the heart— who will see God. How more gentle, how more pure than a Child born to a messy manger-world in Bethlehem.

Judith Turner

Faith and Life

suffer from time to time the effects of poverty and unemployment.

One of the tasks that this group of volunteers does is to bake bread during the last week before the elderly receive their social grants.

They say that this is the most difficult time for the elderly because they literally have nothing in their houses. The volunteers combine their own contributions of flour and other ingredients to bake the bread and then take it to the elderly. Once they are in the homes of the elderly they also look for what else they might be able to do for them.

They bring Christmas to these old people every time they do that. They bring Christmas throughout the year.

In your parish, and in your community, there are many organisations who could use your help. They are waiting for you.

Even if you have only an hour or two per week to spare, offer your help. They need it.

Practise volunteering at home too. Do things for others without expecting anything in return, without counting and keeping tabs on what you have done. Do something for your husband or wife, brother or sister or friend, knowing that you will never remind them of that favour ever again. Give them a little bit of Christmas.

For Mother Teresa said: “It is Christmas every time you let God love others through you… yes, it is Christmas every time you smile at your brother and offer him your hand.”

LOVING FATHER bless us, the people of AFRICA, and help us to live in justice, love and peace Mary, Mother of Africa, pray for us

13

Fr Matthias Nsamba

Point of Reflection

A Christmas I’ll always remember

T

EN years ago, Bishop Fritz Lobinger, then head of Aliwal North diocese in the Eastern Cape, solemnly opened St Jude’s church in Sterkspruit, where I served as parish priest.

We had built this Church to commemorate the Year of Holy Eucharist, proclaimed by Pope John Paul II. The theme of the fundraising for the building of the church and the opening was: “The Church is the Temple where God’s people meet to break and share bread.”

The people of Jozana’s Hoek would not settle for only celebrating Mass and receiving the Body and Blood in their cherished newly-built and blessed church. Two months after the opening they organised a Christmas feast at the church for all people in the village (Isaiah 25:6).

Everybody was invited to share in the meal. All kinds of food were there; there was plenty to eat and drink. The people of Jozana’s Hoek contributed generously towards their Christmas feast at the church.

We also baptised children at Mass that day. By their baptism they were born into a healthy Church—the family of God—and were assured of growing up among exemplary people who follow the commandment, “Love one another… (John 13:34-35).

This was an exceptionally good Christmas when all the people of God, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, came together to celebrate the Birth of our Saviour. We shared the Eucharistic meal and the traditional meal.

For us as Africans, a meal is perhaps the most basic and most ancient symbol of friendship, love, and unity; food and drink taken in common are signs that life is shared.

People sat around dishes of meat, pap and umnqhusho (crushed maize mixed with beans) and gourds full of traditional drinks and were passed on from one to the other.

As the area is a predominantly Sotho, one could see people covered with blankets and Sotho hats, coming with sticks and knives to cut meat.

Dogs were seen in big numbers, waving tails because they had tasty bones in plenty too.

People shared their presents with one another, Catholics and non-Catholics. This was a proper ecumenical spirit on display.

It is rightly said that if you want your Christmas presents to be perfect, seek the presence of God. In that new church God dwelt and he dwells eternally.

That Christmas in Jozana’s Hoek’s Catholic church, all people came together: enemies shared in the spiritual and physical meals, the sick were there, the hungry left satisfied. There was joy, sharing and acceptance, a true spirit of the children of God and of Christmas.

The communal meal the people shared that day—regardless of their creed, gender, political parties, tribe or age—was a root metaphor of the Eucharist, the giver of life to whom the fruit of life is joyfully presented.

This unique way of celebrating Christmas in 2005, ten years ago, deepened my communal understanding of the Eucharist.

I am now serving at Qoqodala parish in the diocese of Queenstown, but I look back fondly at that Christmas at Jozana’s Hoek ten years ago.

The children I baptised that day will celebrate ten years since they were born into the family of God, and the people of Jozana’s Hoek are celebrating ten years of their new church.

I will always remember that Christmas of 2005.

And now I am looking forward to another one in the same style, here at Qoqodala.

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This was 2015

14

The Southern Cross, December 16 to December 22, 2015

YEAR-END REVIEW

The highlights and lowlights of the year

It was the year in which South Africa had its first beatification, Pope Francis visited Africa, Asia and America, the Synod of Bishops on the Family was marked by controversy, and the papal nuncio to Southern Africa quietly disappeared. GÜNTHER SIMMERMACHER looks back at 2015.

DECEMBER 2014

The Denis Hurley Centre in Durban officially begins to operate with a symbolic handover of the keys by Cardinal Wilfrid Napier.

Precious Blood Sister Hermenegild Makoro, secretarygeneral of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC) is appointed to the Vatican’s Commission for the Protection of Minors.

After Somali militants kill 36 non-Muslim quarry workers, Christians in Kenya “are living in fear, wondering where the next attack will be”, says Bishop Emanuel Barbara of Malindi.

To help set the agenda for the 2015 Synod of Bishops on the Family in October, the Vatican sends the world’s Catholic bishops’ conferences a list of questions on a range of topics, including matters of marriage and sexuality that proved especially controversial at the 2014 family synod. The Southern African bishops post the questionnaire on the Internet to collect answers.

In his annual Christmas address to the Roman curia Pope Francis warns against spiritual ills to which he says Vatican officials are prone, including “spiritual Alzheimer's,” “existential schizophrenia,” publicity-seeking, the “terrorism of gossip” and even a poor sense of humour.

JANUARY 2015

In a statement, the SACBC condemns the murders of journalists of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris as an attack on the core principle of democracy.

The diocese of Mariannhill receives R500 000 from the JG Zuma Foundation to fund the Bible translation from its original Hebrew and Greek into isiZulu.

Jesuit Father James Fitzsimons, who initiated the “Pray with the Pope” column in The Southern Cross, dies on January 8 at 95.

Pope Francis names 15 new cardinals, three of them Africans.

Ali Agca, the man who shot St John Paul II in 1981, visits the tomb of the late pope on St Peter’s basilica.

Pope Francis visits the Philippines and Sri Lanka on a six-day visit to Asia. In Sri Lanka he canonises St Joseph Vaz. Raymond Perrier, a Southern Cross columnist and former director of the Jesuit Institute, is appointed director of the Denis Hurley Centre.

Bishop Victor Phalana is installed as head of Klerksdorp diocese on January 25.

At their plenary session in Pretoria the bishops meet with leaders of evangelical churches.

The SACBC and the Jesuit Institute condemn a new wave of xenophobic attacks.

FEBRUARY

The Southern Cross reveals that the SACBC has invited Pope Francis to visit South Africa. No date is being envisaged.

February 8 is observed as the SACBC’s new Day of Prayer against human trafficking.

The Vatican sets up public showers and offers free haircuts to the homeless near St Peter’s Square.

The bishops of Southern Africa warn that until President Jacob Zuma answers “fully and openly the many questions that remain about the expenditure of public money on Nkandla”, there will be repeated disturbances such as those that disrupted the president’s State of the Nation address.

The 21 Coptic Christians who were beheaded by Islamic State militants in Libya died as martyrs, invoking the name of Jesus, says Catholic Bishop Antonios Aziz Mina of Giza, Egypt.

Pope Francis declares St Gregory of Narek, a 10th-century Armenian monk, as a Doctor of the Church.

Indian Jesuit Father Alexis Prem Kumar, 47, is released eight months after he was kidnapped in Afghanistan.

Fr Charles Kuppelwieser, founder of the Sizanani Village in Bronkhorstspruit, dies on February 24 at 81.

Rosanne Shields becomes the first female chair of the board of the Catholic Newspaper & Publishing Co., which publishes The Southern Cross.

MARCH

Fr John Paul Mwaniki becomes the first African-born abbot of the Benedictine Inkamana abbey in Vryheid, Eshowe diocese.

Jean Vanier, Canadian founder of the international L’Arche homes, is awarded the prestigious Templeton Prize.

The head of the Melkite Catholic Church, Patriarch Gregoire III Laham, rejects all calls for an international military intervention in Syria and urges “a concrete and realistic road map” to peace.

Visiting the southern Italian city of Naples, Pope Francis calls on all those involved in organised crime, including their accomplices, to convert back to the path of love and justice.

Pope Francis declares 2016 the Year of Mercy, an extraordinary Holy Year, from December 8, 2015 to November 20, 2016.

Pope Francis gives the beatification of Benedict Daswa the goahead. The date is set for September 13 in Thohoyandou, Limpopo.

APRIL

The Durban Passion Play, held every five years, is performed at the Playhouse Drama Theatre from April 1-19.

US journalist Robert Blair Kaiser, a prominent Vatican II correspondent whose Rome apartment was a popular meeting place for bishops at the Council, including Archbishop Denis Hurley, dies on April 2 at 84.

The Shroud of Turin goes on display from April 19 to June 24. Pope Francis sees it in June on a visit to Turin.

The Turkish government is angered when Pope Francis calls the Armenian genocide of 1915 a “genocide”.

A survey conducted by the Jesuit Institute finds that 80% of Catholics who responded believe that divorced and civilly remarried Catholics should be allowed to receive Communion.

Stigmatine Father Patrick Rakeketse is appointed associate secretary-general of the SACBC,

Look is a Sunday sheet for children between

4-9 years old providing Gospel-focused activities and games for younger children. It is useful for children’s liturgy, school religious education and for family use.

Each week the Gospel story is explained in age appropriate language. A prayer and a variety of activities that will engage the children are included to help each child get to know the person of Jesus.

As with everything Redemptorist Pastoral Publications provides, Look links faith to the everyday lives of the children.

Some of the 25 000 people who attended the beatification Mass for Blessed Benedict Daswa at Tshitanini near Thohoyandou. The Southern Cross distributed 4 000 free issues of the special Daswa edition. (Photo: Judy Stockill) succeeding Fr Grant Emmanuel.

Precious Blood Sister Stefani Tiefenbacher, 86, is murdered by intruders in her order’s Sacred Heart Home in Ixopo, near Durban. Her killers, Sbongiseni Phungula‚ 24‚ and Mondli Shozi‚ 25‚ are each sentenced to two life terms and an additional 18 years’ imprisonment in May.

MAY

Assisted suicide will place civilisation on the road to the elimination of anyone considered “a burden to society”, says Archbishop William Slattery following a High Court ruling which allowed a doctor to assist terminally ill cancer patient Robin Stransham-Ford to die.

St Augustine College, South Africa’s Catholic university, appoints high court attorney Garth Abraham as its new president. He succeeds Sr Madge Karecki.

A Southern Cross pilgrimage, led

by Archbishop Slattery, visits the Shroud of Turin, Rome and Florence, as well as the Holy Land.

Pope Francis canonises Ss Marie Alphonsine Ghattas and Mariam Baouardy, the first two modern Palestinian saints.

Cardinal Luis Tagle of the Philippines is elected president of Caritas Internationalis, the confederation of 165 Catholic charities.

The SACBC donates R119 700 to Caritas Nepal after the earthquakes in that country.

Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was murdered by San Salvador’s military junta in 1980, is beatified as a martyr. Consolata Sister Irene Stefani is beatified in Nyeri, Kenya.

JUNE

Pope Francis issues his encyclical on the environment, Laudatio Si’. It receives widespread praise but also criticism from conservative politicians and bloggers.

Devil worshipping is “growing” across South Africa, with children as young as six involved in Satanism, warns exorcist Fr Colin Bowes.

Pope Francis accepts the resignations of two US bishops, Archbishop John Nienstedt and Auxiliary Bishop Lee Piche of St Paul and Minneapolis, who were accused of mishandling allegations of child abuse. This follows the resignation for similar reasons of Bishop Robert

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Finn of Kansas City in April.

Jesuit Father Nicholas King begins his tour of Winter Living Theology lectures in several South African cities as well as in Swaziland.

Noted Italian composer Ennio Morricone premiers his first-ever Mass in the church of the Gesù, the Jesuits’ main church in Rome.

Jewish terrorists target the Benedictine church of the Multiplication in Tabgha, Israel, in an arson attack. The attack followed more than 40 suspected hate crimes committed by Jewish extremists against churches, mosques and monasteries in Israel, the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem since 2009.

Sr Nirmala Joshi, who succeeded Bl Mother Teresa as the head of the Missionaries of Charity, dies on June 23 at 80.

Armenian Catholic Patriarch Nerses Bedros XIX Tarmouni dies on June 25 at 75. He is succeeded in July by Patriarch Gregoire Pierre XX Ghabroyan.

The first meeting of the new South African Council of Deacons is held in Pretoria.

The Vatican and Palestine sign a historic agreement that supports a two-state solution to the ongoing conflict in the Holy Land, based on the 1967 borders between Israel and Palestine.

Pope Francis establishes a new Secretariat for Communications, whose aim is to coordinate and streamline the Holy See’s multiple communications outlets.

The papal nuncio to Southern Africa, Archbishop Mario Cassari, is quietly transferred to Malta after three years in Pretoria.

JULY

Pope Francis visits Ecuador, Paraguay and Bolivia on a visit to Latin America.

As of 2016 the Jesuits in South Africa will no longer be a region of the British Province of the Society of Jesus but become a region of the new Zimbabwe-Mozambique Province.

The Vatican endorses the historic Iran nuclear deal and expresses hope for further breakthroughs.

Bethany Beyond the Jordan, which the Church recognises as the place of Christ’s baptism in

Frail/assisted care in shared or single rooms.

Independent care in single/double rooms with en-suite bathrooms.

Rates include meals, laundry and 24-hour nursing.

Day Care and short stay facilities also available.

YEAR-END REVIEW

Bishops, priests, religious and laity took part in a special Mass at Mariannhill cathedral in August to celebrate the Year of Consecrated Life, which will still run until February 2016 (Photo: Bishop Stanislaw Dziuba) the kingdom of Jordan, is declared a UNESCO heritage site.

Prominent media priest Fr Robert Barron is named auxiliary bishop for the archdiocese of Los Angeles.

Pope Francis meets with around 60 mayors from around the world for a Vatican summit on climate change.

After serving 15 years as a deacon, Fr Godfrey Solomon, a 63-yearold widower, is ordained to the priesthood in Cape Town.

AUGUST

The Church must be “merciful” and “understanding” towards divorced and remarried people and give more support to single parents and young married couples, the bishops of Southern Africa decide at their mid-year plenary session in Mariannhill.

Archbishop Stephen Brislin of Cape Town is re-elected as SACBC president. Bishop Sithembele Sipuka of Mthatha is elected first vice-president and Bishop Valentine Seane of Gaborone as second vice-president.

All the bishops of Southern Africa are present in Mariannhill cathedral for the celebration of the Year of Consecrated Life.

The Church celebrates the bicentenary of St John Bosco, founder of the Salesian order.

Pakistan’s Supreme Court suspends the death sentence of Asia Bibi, a Christian charged with blasphemy.

The bishops announce that Benedict Daswa’s feast day will be on February 1.

The South African Council of Churches condemns as “harmful and “heretical” practices of certain evangelical Churches, echoing the Catholic Church’s call for pastors and prophets to be part of a regulatory body.

The Church in Southern Africa launches an anti-pornography campaign which includes the distribution of 100 000 pamphlets.

Józef Wesołowski, the laicised former nuncio to the Dominican Republic, dies at 67 while awaiting trial for sex abuse in the Vatican.

The president of the Scottish bishops’ conference, Archbishop Philip Tartaglia of Glasgow, offers a “profound apology” to victims of child abuse following a national review of Church safe-

SEPTEMBER

guarding procedures.

Benedict Daswa is beatified by Cardinal Angelo Amato at Tshitanini village near Thohoyandou, with an estimated 25 000 in attendance, to whom The Southern Cross is distributed free of charge. It is South Africa’s first beatification. Before the beatification Bl Daswa’s remains were transferred to Our Lady of the Assumption church in Nweli.

Pope Francis institutes a new process for marriage annulments that will be simpler and faster than the previous process.

The “Saints of Italy” pilgrimage, hosted jointly by Southern Cross/Radio Veritas and led by Fr Emil Blaser OP, visits several shrines of famous saints throughout Italy.

Fr Neil Frank OMI succeeds fellow Oblate Father Sylvester David as president of St Joseph’s Theological Institute at Cedara, near Pietermaritzburg.

Pope Francis visits Cuba, where he meets with communist leader Fidel Castro, and the United States.

In the US he addresses the United Nations and the US Congress, and presides over the Meeting of Families in Philadelphia.

While in the US, Pope Francis canonises controversial 18th-century Franciscan missionary St Junipero Serra.

An SACBC delegation travels to Lesotho to meet with bishops and Church workers, as well as with people affected by the political crisis in the country.

OCTOBER

The Synod of Bishops on the Family in the Vatican is marked by heated arguments on issues such as Communion for the divorced and civilly remarried, and pastoral care for homosexuals.

Fr Russell Pollitt SJ, director of the Jesuit Institute, joins Vatican Radio for a month as expert analyst on the family synod.

Ethiopian Father Tesfaye Tadesse Gebresilasie is elected the first African superior-general of the Comboni Missionaries.

More than 250 groups take part in a national “Rosary Crusade for Africa” of prayer in public places throughout South Africa.

Commenting on the student

The Southern Cross, December 16 to December 22, 2015

In Memoriam

Pope Francis presides at a session of the Synod of Bishops on the Family at the Vatican in October. Cardinal Wilfrid Napier, one of the president delegates at the synod, is second from right. (Photo: Paul Haring/CNS) protests against fee hikes, Archbishop Slattery says that government must listen to them and learn from countries like Japan and South Korea that have reaped rewards for investing in higher education.

Pope Francis canonises Louis Martin and Marie-Azélie Guérin Martin, the parents of St Thérèse of Lisieux.

Archbishop Slattery calls the manner in which hospitals discard miscarried foetuses into rubbish bins “a despicable objectification of human life”.

Addressing the 10th anniversary celebrations of the founding of the SACBC’s Denis Hurley Peace Institute in Pretoria’s Sacred Heart cathedral, former President Thabo Mbeki says he hopes his foundation will work with the Church for peace in African countries.

NOVEMBER

The Church marks the centenary of the birth of the late Archbishop Denis Hurley OMI of Durban. The celebrations include the official blessing of the centre named after him next to Emmanuel cathedral.

Pope Francis in a message bestows his apostolic blessing on the Denis Hurley Centre.

The Vatican arrests Mgr Lucio Ángel Vallejo Balda and Francesca Chaouqui for leaking documents, about Pope Francis’s attempts to institute financial reforms, which

contributed to two books by Italian journalists, against whom the Vatican later also initiates legal proceedings.

Fr Paul Themba Manci of Mariannhill is named new rector of St John Vianney National Seminary to succeed Fr Molewe Machingoane of Witbank.

Catholic Patriarch Fouad Twal of Jerusalem protests against the bulldozing of a Church-owned building in East Jerusalem by Israeli security forces.

Church leaders around the world condemn the successive terrorist attacks by ISIS on Beirut and Paris that killed more than 40 and 129 people respectively.

The Church needs to lead an urgent social response as South Africa heads into a “very difficult time” caused by the drought and poor economy, says Bishop Graham Rose of Dundee.

The first isiZulu Children’s Bible is published by Mariannhill Mission Press.

The Dominican order worldwide begins the year-long celebrations of the order’s founding 800 years ago. It was approved by Pope Honorius III in 1216.

Pope Francis makes his first visit to Africa, going to Kenya, Uganda and the Central African Republic.

The latter visit marks the first time a pope has gone to a war-afflicted country.

Wishing all our pilgrims, both past and present and future, PEACE, JOY, GOOD HEALTH AND HAPPINESS AT CHRISTMAS AND IN THE NEW YEAR Tel: (031) 266 7702

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*Kindly note that our offices will be closed for the holiday season from 18 Dec to 11 Jan 2016 inclusive

15

Fr James Fitzsimons SJ, 95, of Johannesburg, on January 8 Fr Robert Stewart OFM, 80, of Boksburg, on January 23 Cardinal Karl Josef Becker SJ, 86, German theologian, on February 10 Fr Karl Kuppelwieser, 81, of Bronkhorstspruit, on February 24 Cardinal Edward Egan, 82, of New York, on March 5 Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte, 78, of Montreal, Canada, on April 8 Fr Tommy Swords OMI, 77, of Kimberley, on April 15 Fr Steuart Chancellor, 91, of Durban, on April 17 Cardinal Francis George, 78, of Chicago, on April 17 Fr Patrick Towe OMI, 66, of Kimberley/Bloemfontein, on May 6 Fr Leo D’Aes OMI, 85, of Bloemfontein, on May 8 Fr Peter Simmonds SDB, 87, of Cape Town, on May 28 Fr Enoch Shomang OMI, 75, of Johannesburg, on June 25 Fr Romeo Galeazzo OSFS, 77, formerly of Keimoes-Upington, on July 11 Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, 87, of Bologna, on July 11 Fr Benedict Diepstraten O.Praem, 88, of Cape Town, on July 16 Cardinal William Baum, 88, of Washington, on July 23 Fr Noel Winston OFM Cap, 77, formerly of Cape Town, Durban and Port Elizabeth, on August 7 Fr Frank Leong Kom SVD, 76, formerly of Johannesburg, on August 10 Fr Cyril Malinga, 48, of Durban, on August 13 Cardinal Laszlo Paskai, 88, of Budapest, Hungary, on August 17 Fr Willie Ockenfels SAC, 81, of Queenstown, on August 19 Fr Desmond Curran, 88, of Cape Town, on August 20 Fr Robert Hindley OSFM, 85, of Keimoes-Upington, on August 31 Fr Tom Nicholson, 82, of Cape Town, on September 23 Cardinal Jan Koreci, 91, of Nitra, Slovakia, on October 25 Fr Stephen Vitto CMM, 39, of Witbank, on November 22

JACOB’S WELL RETREATS 2016

06 to 15 March 2016 Directed Retreat Fr Manuel Casillas MCCJ Preached Retreat Fr Cassiano Kalima IMC Theme: When bad things happen to Good people: Divine Mercy on a daily basis 28 June to 7 July 2016 Preached Retreat Fr. Rodney Moss Theme: Year of Mercy; Insights from St. Augustine 1 to 10 October 2016 Directed Retreat Fr Clement Senekane

1 to 08 October 2016 Preached Retreat Fr Justin Stirton Theme: Listening to the HEART of MERCY 10 to 19 December 2016 Directed Retreat Fr Vusi Phenyane OMI Preached Retreat Fr Emmanuel Ndlovu CMM Theme: Journey to Conversion

BOOKINGS

Dancers wearing traditional garb perform during the canonisation of St Joseph Vaz by Pope Francis in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in January (Photo: Anto Akkara/CNS)

www.southafrica.alpha.org

Jacob’s Well Retreat, P O Box 41, Botha’s Hill, 3660, Phone: 031 765-1959, Fax: 031 765-8199 jacobswell@ibound.co.za

We wish all Southern Cross Readers a Blessed Christmas

16

The Southern Cross, December 16 to December 22, 2015

COMMUNITY

Pupils of Brescia House School received their first Holy Communion from Fr Keith Gordon-Davis at the parish of the Resurrection in Bryanston, Johannesburg.

Send your photos to pics@scross.co.za

Residents and staff of Little Eden Home for the intellectually disabled held their annual Christmas Concert. Residents are pictured as shepherds in the nativity scene and (inset) Candy, Daniella, Pinky and Anna play musical angels.

Mr and Mrs zulu were married at Holy Rosary parish in Ivory Park, Tembisa, archdiocese of Pretoria, with Fr Herman Van Dijck MSC presiding.

Five children from the Immaculate Heart of Mary parish in Three Rivers, Vereeniging, received first Holy Communion. (Back from left) Society of African Mission Frs Henri, Emmanuel Dim, and Rufus. (Middle) Sheldon and Sabastian Naidu and (front) Henrique and Gabriela e Silva, and Diogo Rodrigues.

Youth at St Francis of Assisi parish in Eastwood, Durban, received confirmation from Bishop Barry Wood. They are pictured with Bishop Wood (back centre), Sacred Heart Frs Sanil Michael, Jayaraj Chapalamadugu, JeanClaude Nkuka and Deacon Stephen SCJ.

Youth at St Vincent’s parish in Algoa Park, Port Elizabeth, were confirmed by Bishop Vincent zungu, assisted by Fr John Clarke and Deacon Neville Smith.

GOD IS AMONG US. IMPOSSIBLE THINGS ARE POSSIBLE WITH POWER OF GOD We the people of Mpophomeni and former parish priest and deacon, Fr Jude Fernando TOR and Deacon Seraficus Nzimande TOR send you our thanks and gratitude to all the people who helped us in different ways to build the new church where we could accommodate 900 people.

Thank You v His Eminence Cardinal Wilfrid Napier O.F.M.for his blessings and encouragement v Rt Rev Bishop Barry Wood O.M.I. for his blessings and encouragement v Rev Fr Julian Carassco, late of Australia who gave the bell tower and encouragement v All the contemplative nuns here and overseas for their prayers v All the people who have contributed financially here and overseas v All the people who have contributed building materials v All the people who have given moral and prayer support here and overseas v Mr Bill Middleton, our engineer and overall supervisor who gave his talent and time free of charge v Mr Protus Ntombela, our architect who gave his talent and time free of charge

God bless you and give you rewards here and in heaven We, the faithful of Verulam wish you a blessed Christmas and prosperous New Year God Bless you.

Fr Jude Fernando TOR, Our Lady of Good Help, Verulam Tel: (H) +27 32 533 1255 (C) +27 82 588 1691 frjudetor@yahoo.com

A new Adoration chapel at Our Lady of Loreto parish in Kempton Park, Johannesburg, was blessed by the vicar general of Johannesburg, Fr Duncan Tsole. Parish priest Fr Peter Rebello OCD, Fr Tsole, and Deacon Keith McKenzie are seen in front of a mural of the Agony in the garden of Gethsemane.

Adult converts of Our Lady of the Assumption parish in Milnerton, Cape Town, were confirmed by Fr Peter-John Pearson (fourth from right), vicargeneral of Cape Town. They are pictured with parish priest Fr Stan Botha (back right) and Deacon Derrick Kalil (second from left).

Fifty children of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary parish in Krugersdorp received their first Holy Communion from Fr Ignatius Fidgeon OMI. They are pictured with Fr Fidgeon and catechists Olga and Diana.

FOCUS

The Southern Cross, December 16 to December 22, 2015

17

The Star of Bethlehem in July In July, Jupiter and Venus converged in what has been called a “Star of Bethlehem moment”. For one development organisation it set the scene for a “Christmas in July” function for children from a poor suburb. KEVIN ROUSSEL, executive director of Catholic Welfare and Development reflects on that special day.

O

N July 18 this year, across the night skies a momentous celestial alignment brought visibility to the Star of Bethlehem, the same star that led the Magi on their journey to Bethlehem to meet our Lord and Saviour at his birth.

The configuration of the sky we all know well from Nativity scenes— so beautifully surrounded by the darkness of space with twinkling stars—humbles us to recognise the glory of God. What a privilege to be alive in 2015 to see something that no one since the birth of Christ has seen, and a blessing to have the presence of God around us all the time.

On this day too, the presence of God and the work of Spirit was seen at the humble offices of Catholic Welfare and Development (CWD) in Green Point, Cape Town, when a Christmas in July function brought together 60 children.

This came after a successful week of doing our bit for “67 Minutes for Mandela” which included a range of activities at five different centres, from pampering the elderly to distribution of warm meals and blankets on a cold day. One key highlight of

A Christmas in July function brought together 60 children at the CWD offices in Green Point, Cape Town. that week of activities was a partnership with Table Mountain National Parks involving over 150 park staff with donations they had raised to transform our small centre in one of the poorest suburbs of Cape Town to provide a beacon of hope for the children.

Table Mountain National Parks built boardwalks, sand pits, painted buildings and, most importantly, planted life-giving trees, turning our existing centre into a flourishing living space for the children of the community.

The rangers were busy. Some had brought their own children who worked tirelessly on a cold rainy winter’s day to improve a centre for children whom they had never met. The love and care they put into the revamp was such as if they were improving their own homes.

The passion to do the work of God is similar to the Magi, driven by a sign in the sky. Throughout the month of July, CWD relived the famous journey of the Magi, watching as many who saw our star rise, seek

and find our projects and like the Magi brought extraordinary gifts, in their time, skill and the many goods that were donated.

With the week that had gone by and all the blessings and miracles happening around us, the stage was set for the Christmas in July event.

There is a rather embarrassing picture of the team in a moment of fun setting up the training room and forming a locomotion train with a drummer at the front, wearing reindeer antlers. I am sure they were moments when the Magi on their journey must also have worked beyond their own tiredness.

After meeting Herod they must have felt deflated and concerned, but they travelled on. Likewise, our team, working in the field of development, is always running a marathon, breaking physical limitations while uplifting our spiritual giftedness.

Like many other development organisations, our finances are restricted in the current climate, and being able to stay true to our work

Noella Kalala leads CWD team members in a moment of fun setting up the Christmas party. can be difficult when survival becomes the key driver. It must be what the Holy Family felt like when they were told to register for the census in Bethlehem, travelling without significant resources across a barren and hot country.

But the Holy Family, like the Magi and shepherds and many others, were driven by their love of God and their obedience to his will. This is a lesson which we have learnt at CWD, and our Christmas in July event was an example of doing so much with so little.

So here we were on July 18, the star of Bethlehem above us in the night sky and 60 children, half of them from our centre in Tafelsig, Mitchell’s Plein. Two days earlier they had been treated to a trip to the Two Oceans Aquarium. Only two of the children from Tafelsig had ever even left their suburb before.

The team managed to secure a magician and Danny the Dog from the Western Cape Traffic Department. The Salesians and a team of

The children patriciated in fun competitions such as the wheelbarrow race. volunteers were there, too. Through a wonderful in-kind donation, every child was given a toy and sweet hamper on the day. Father Christmas made an appearance, and as our “Christmas” fell on the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, the children were led in prayer as they said the Our Father and heard the Eid prayer.

Children were treated to entertainment and many fun competitions including egg-and-spoon races, wheelbarrows and at one point there were a group of children reliving the spirit of the ’60s in a hoola-hoop competition.

Lunch and breakfast had been provided and there was enough left over for people to take home and share with their families. Even a momentous occasion comes to an end, with everyone travelling back to their homes and all the older people finally were able to find 67 minutes for themselves.

As the star of Bethlehem disappeared on July 19, we looked up to the stars in wonder at how much was made possible, and the joy we brought to the children this year because of the Love of God and sending his only Son 2015 years ago.

18

The Southern Cross, December 16 to December 22, 2015

TRAVEL

A journey to the Holy Land After reading the book The Holy Land Trek, JOHN NURSE bought a ticket to Tel Aviv to explore the Holy Land. In the first of two parts he describes seeing Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

W

E were pretty bushed when at last we arrived at our hostel in the Old City of Jerusalem. Our room was on the third floor of a warren-like building and had access to the roof from which we saw Jerusalem for the first time.

A golden-coloured city of winding alleys bathed in the early morning light and dead quiet. Its skyline is pierced with spires, domes and minarets, the massive golden Dome of the Rock gleaming as the first rays of sunlight struck it.

We stood spellbound, speaking only in hushed whispers as if any noise would break the spell that enveloped us.

Then a lone bell began to ring out and almost immediately others joined in. The city resounded with a call to prayer for both Muslim and Christian. I felt an urge to cross myself so holy was the atmosphere.

Below me an Orthodox Jew scurried past head bowed down over the Siddar prayer book, reading as he went. A door from the house opposite opened and a teenaged boy stepped out, probably on his way to school, and he crossed himself as he left his home. It was a moving experience.

The next day I started my pilgrimage around the city. I headed

for the Upper Room on Mount Zion, the place where the Lord took bread and blessed it, broke it and handing it to his apostles said, “This is my body.”

The first Mass took place here, and here was also the room in which the shattered, frightened Apostles gathered after Christ’s death, and where the Holy Spirit descended upon them that first Pentecost.

The room was just as it should be, just a large, empty, old upper room with no decoration. I was the only person there and sat down on one of the few benches scattered about with my bible in hand and began to slowly read the relevant passages.

After a while I closed my eyes and meditated upon what I had read, what it must have been like to be there at the Last Supper.

I was deep in prayer when I became aware of a presence in the room. A soft murmuring which progressively got louder. I opened one eye rather curiously, not quite sure what was going on around me. I saw that I was surrounded by a group of Pentecostal Christians, also in deep prayer.

They were accompanied by their pastor who was leading them in their worship. As is with this type of Christian the prayers get louder and louder, more and more excited until everyone was all but shouting, a great babble of unintelligible noise, but no doubt very meaningful to them.

It put an end to my quiet meditation, but all the same, it was a very special encounter with a group of sincere, but different Christians.

From my Pentecostal encounter I made my way towards the Mount of Olives and the Garden of Geth-

The Dome of the Rock and, behind it, the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, seen from the Mount of Olives.

semane, stopping at the Western Wall, which is actually a retaining wall of the west side of Herod’s Temple.

After crushing the Jewish revolt in 70AD the Romans destroyed the temple. Today the very beautiful Dome of the Rock, a Muslim shrine which opened in 691, sits above the wall.

I made my way down to the wall, covering my head in the prescribed way and standing before this massive, dark stone wall I prayed in the manner of the Jews who were all around.

All of us, our hands raised above our heads, our fingers gently touching the wall as we swayed slowly back and forth whilst talking to our God, the One God all of us pray to.

It seems so strange that there should be any conflict between us, Muslim, Jew or Christian.

A group of pilgrims was celebrating Holy Mass in the church of All Nations, situated at Gethsemane at the foot of the Mount of Olives.

It was very busy with tourists and pilgrims. Some, I hope just the tourists, seemed to be on a mission to capture as many images as they could on their digital cameras.

Thankfully there is always a spot where one can sit quietly with all the hub-bub going on around and lose oneself with the Lord.

In every church there is a chapel or a closed-off area where those on an organised pilgrimage can have Holy Mass, celebrated by their accompanying priest. Here, as in many other places, I managed to attach myself to a group for Holy Mass.

I

tried to do the Via Dolorosa, Our Lord’s walk from judgment to his death on the cross, but found it a bit much what with people knocking into me, touts trying to call me into their shops and the odd guy offering to be my guide.

Halfway through I gave up.

But one of the Stations of the Cross had a chapel in a crypt which was for the silent adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. So peaceful, so perfect, a place for the exhausted pilgrim to kneel down in adoration of Our Lord in the form of the Eucharist.

The Via Dolorosa culminates in the church of the Holy Sepulchre, the church built over the site of the crucifixion and burial place of Our Lord. It is almost definitely the actual place.

A massive church dating back to Crusader times, built on the ruins of the church built in the 4th century, it is run jointly by the Greek Orthodox, Armenian, Coptic and Catholic denominations, with the Ethiopian church also represented.

It is all rather chaotic, in some places very gaudy, people every-

Left: Pilgrims reflect silently in the Cenacle, which marks the Upper Room of the Last Supper, the risen Lord’s first appearance to the Apostles, and the coming of the Holy Spirit on the first Pentecost. Right: The Western Wall, Judaism holiest site, is a retaining wall of King Herod’s temple. (All photos on this page by Günther Simmermacher)

Left: A pilgrim touches what tradition holds is an imprint of Jesus’ hand at Station V on the Via Dolorosa. Right: Archbishop Stephen Brislin celebrates Mass at the Rock of the Agony in the church of All Nations in Gethsemane.

Left: An Orthodox monk lights candles outside the tomb of Christ in the church of the Holy Sepulchre. Right: The silver star that has marked the spot of Jesus’ birth in the crypt of Bethlehem’s church of the Nativity since the fourth century. where. I found a corner and tried to concentrate on reading my Bible and had only just fallen into prayerful contemplation when I was chivvied away by a Greek priest.

Moving on, I noticed a Franciscan come out of a side door which he left open, just a few metres from the tomb. I took a peek in, and there was a super chapel, simple in its décor as to look almost Protestant. It was just what I was looking for: a place to be alone with Our Lord in this holiest of holy places.

In Bethlehem the Church of the Nativity was much the same, very gaudy and rather grimy with people queuing to walk through a crypt with a star on the floor which marks the traditional spot where Mary gave birth to Our Lord. I gave it a miss. After all, does it really matter if that is the spot or not?

My wife Eileen was with me now and we wandered over to the adjacent Catholic church of St Catherine of Alexandria. Run by

Tony Wyllie & Co. Catholic Funeral Home & Staff

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Ian 021447 6334 ian@noah.org.za

wish everyone a Blessed Christmas and a prosperous New Year Maitland & Muizenberg, Cape Town

the Franciscans, it is very much nicer.

Most tourists miss St Catherine’s as most head for the betterknown church of the Nativity.

This is a great pity, as an atmosphere of prayerful respect prevails within it.

I asked a monk who was busy washing down pews if there was a possibility of attending Mass sometime soon. As luck would have it, a group of pilgrims had booked a chapel for Holy Mass in a few minutes time. I asked him to give me a shout when they arrived and so he did. I found myself with a group of Portuguese Catholics in a lovely side chapel.

We all gathered around the altar, which made for a more intimate celebration of the Mass. Not a word could I understand, but the Mass is the Mass in any language, and so one knows where one is at any given time. It was a very moving experience. n John Nurse writes from Knysna.

The second part of his travelogue will run next week.

END HOUSE

Connie and John of End House, Gordon’s Bay, Cape (Guest House for priests, brothers and religious) wishes everyone a Joyous Christmas and a Blessed New Year. Thank you for your support Bookings open for 2016 Telephone (021) 856 3592 or 082 262 7155 for reservations

The Southern Cross, December 16 to December 22, 2015

CHRISTMAS

19

Covering the ‘most powerful woman in the world’ National Geographic magazine is featuring the Blessed Virgin as its cover story this month. CAROL zIMMERMANN spoke to the journalist who wrote the story.

M

AUREEN Orth, a special correspondent for Vanity Fair magazine who has written about music icons, world leaders and Hollywood celebrities, tackled a completely different subject for National Geographic magazine: the Virgin Mary.

For the magazine’s December cover story, “Mary the most powerful woman in the world”, Ms Orth visited several countries and interviewed dozens of people with strong devotional ties to the Mary—including from those who claim to have seen her, those who believe her intercession has healed them and those seeking her spiritual guidance and intercession.

In the magazine’s Washington office, Ms Orth said what made the biggest impression on her while interviewing people for the article was Mary’s universal appeal across diverse cultures.

“It was a huge journey all over the world,” she said, noting that what particularly stands out after a year of visiting Marian devotional sites in Bosnia-Herzegovina, France, Mexico, Egypt and Rwanda is that Mary is the “hope and solace of so many people including Muslims”.

The Muslim appreciation of Mary, as a “holy woman of God,” she said, “is a bridge that ought to be explored”, especially in this time of strife caused by religious extremism.

The cover of the December 2015 issue of National Geographic magazine.

Ms Orth, a practising Catholic who certainly knew about Mary before this assignment, said she learned a great deal from talking with scholarly experts and reading mystics who wrote about the life of Mary but whose observations didn’t make it into the article.

She came away with a “more personal relationship” with Mary than an intellectual one, saying she understood Mary more as a person after talking with so many who are devoted to her.

She also witnessed the deep faith of many who have travelled great distances to be where apparitions of Mary are said to have taken place such as Medjugorje, Bosnia-Herzegovina, where six village children said they first saw Mary in 1981 and continue to see apparitions there. A Vatican doctrinal congregation is still studying these claims.

Pilgrims in Kalwaria Paclawska, Poland, show their devotion to Mary with a procession. (Photo: Darek Delmanowicz, EPA/CNS)

I

n the small village, Ms Orth met four stage-4 cancer victims last November: Two have since died, one is under treatment and another shows no signs of the disease. All four spoke of spiritual conversions and inner peace, she said.

A 59-year-old dad from Boston told Ms Orth that in 2000 one of the Medjugorje visionaries prayed with him for a cure of the cancer that riddled his body, giving him only months left to live. During the prayer, he felt a sensation of heat in his body.

When he went back to Boston a week later, a CT scan revealed that his tumours were almost gone.

Since then, he’s been back to Medjugorje 13 times.

The editors at National Geographic wrote in the margin of Ms Orth’s account of his story: “Why do miracles happen to some people and not others?” Ms Orth, who doesn’t have an answer to that theological query, noted the challenge of explaining spiritual accounts in a scientific magazine.

One of Ms Orth’s most inspiring stops for the story, primarily because she had not been unaware of it, was the small village of Kibeho, Rwanda, described as the place where Mary appeared to three young girls in the 1980s and foretold the genocide that took place in that country in 1994.

In 2001, the Vatican verified the claims of the three girls. One had

been killed in the genocide, one became a monastic sister in Italy and the third fled to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and then Kenya during the three-month genocide in 1994 when the majority Hutu attacked the minority Tutsi and more than 800 000 people were killed.

The girls, Ms Orth writes, “said they spent countless hours in conversations with the Virgin, who called herself Nyina wa Jambo, Mother of the Word. Mary spoke to the girls so often that they called her ‘Mama’”.

But even though Mary is said to have spoken of the love of Jesus and gave these girls motherly advice, she is also said to have shown them images of heaven, hell and purgatory along with horrific images of genocide that she warned could happen if Rwandans did not renew their hearts and dispel evil.

Ms Orth said that the people she spoke with who said they saw apparitions all seemed genuine. She approached them as she would an investigative journalist. Their stories have been consistent throughout the years and they also have undergone extensive questioning from Vatican officials.

The journalist pointed out that very little is known about Mary from the Bible, but as her story reveals, the lack of details about Mary has not stopped people from reaching out to her in prayer and devotion as a way to better understand and approach God. “The number of people who use her as their guide and their way to a higher meaning, that was impressive across the board,” Ms Orth said.—CNS

Pilgrims visit a shrine to Mary in Banneux, Belgium. In 1933, an 11-year-old girl said Mary had appeared to her there eight times as the “Virgin of the Poor”. The Vatican officially recognised the apparitions in 1949. (Photo: Julien Warnand, EPA/CNS)

Beannachtaí na Nollag

The Committees of the Irish South African Association in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban wishes all our members and friends a very happy and peaceful Christmas & New Year

We thank you for supporting our many events during 2015& we look forward to meeting again at 2016 events.

MEDJUGORJE

Year of Mercy Pilgrimage

Rome • Assisi Loreto • Paris

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20

The Southern Cross, December 16 to December 22, 2015

BOOK REVIEWS

The kind of leader we need today SHEENA DUNCAN, by AnneMarie Hendrikz. Tiber Tree Press, Cape Town (2015). 255pp with illustrations.

Reviewed by Paddy Kearney HE cover says it all. Sheena Duncan, with one hand propping up her chin and the other taking down the story of a client at the Johannesburg Black Sash Advice Office.

It is a study of intense attention and concentration, the core of Sheena Duncan’s greatness: collecting accounts of the problems faced by poor working class people, in order to help them find a way through a tangled web of legislation.

The notes she is taking will be fed into the Black Sash’s records to be used for lobbying and advocacy efforts to bring about more humane legislation—and ultimately a new and more just dispensation.

For more than 40 years Duncan based most of her political understanding, leadership strategies and human rights activism on what she learnt from this face-to-face interaction with women and men “who presented the truth of apartheid to her day after day, month after month, year after year”.

This book, together with Mary Burton’s Black Sash: Making Human Rights Real, is a most timely and important study because, more than ever, we need the work of advice offices in every township and rural village across this country, even in

T

the democratic South Africa.

We are in a highly destructive phase of our new democracy, with endless protests about inadequate service delivery: schools, clinics, libraries, buses and trains are burnt in a frenzy of rage and frustration.

Imagine if there was a well-run advice office in every township and every rural village, skilled people collecting the information about socio-economic problems with Sheena Duncan’s rigour—and relentlessly putting a comprehensive picture of what is happening under the noses of government officials and politicians.

Government should be devoting funds to this effort, but is leaving it to NGOs and faith-based organisations to run such offices.

How much money could be saved by providing such a mechanism for people’s problems to be heard and vigorously brought to the attention of government? An early warning system that would save millions currently being squandered through violent protests.

There’s another reason why this book is important at this time.

We hear endless complaints about the lack of leadership in South Africa. This book is like a very user-friendly manual on leadership, revealing the endless ways in which Sheena Duncan displayed the great leadership that South Africa needs at this time.

She had the ability to sustain harmony among an amazingly di-

verse group of Black Sash members.

She pointed the way forward like light in a dark tunnel.

Her colleagues describe her as a thorough professional, always on time, keeping good records, studying whatever documents needed to be studied, having all the documents needed, and following up with rigour.

She demanded excellent performance from staff, and gave them the support they needed to produce such performance; regularly being on the phone to the smaller, more distant Black Sash regions to see what help they needed; writing lengthy circular letters for all the members to give them guidance on the issues that needed to be tackled, and thereby giving everyone the feeling that they were part of a family.

O

f special relevance to Sash members was Duncan’s knowledge of the law, acquired without any formal law studies.

One of her colleagues, Alison Tilley, says that “she read law and bills as if they were novels, ploughing through reams of paper every night with a small whisky at her side. OK, a large whisky”.

Tilley also admired how Duncan “absorbed information like a sponge, retained it as knowledge, and shared it broadly”.

Nevertheless, despite the serious aspects of her leadership, she was described by another colleague as “loveable, approachable, a joy to

NAZARETH HOUSE The Sisters, Staff, Residents, and Children wish

our Archbishop, Clergy, Religious and friends of Johannesburg every blessing for a peace-filled & joyous Christmas, and grace & strength for 2016.

We also express our sincere gratitude to our donors and friends who have assisted us in so many ways throughout the past year.

Without your support, we could not continue our ministry of serving the more vulnerable adults and children in our community.

May the Infant Christ fill you with His Grace and Joy!

Tel: 011 648 1002, Cell: 084 838 3495, superior@nazarethhousejohannesburg.org, fundraiser@nazarethhousejohannesburg.org www.nazarethhousejohannesburg.org Günther Simmermacher

THE HOLY LAND TREK

Let Günther Simmermacher guide you with insight and humour through the great sites of the Holy Land and Jordan on a virtual itinerary, examining the great sites of the region and their history. Only R150 (plus p&p) See also www.holylandtrek.com

Chris Moerdyk

MOERDYK FILES

A collection of the best Southern Cross columns by one of SA’s most popular writers. Read about the day Nelson Mandela was sentenced, what the great thurible swinger did at Mass, why a 400km detour was made to save the parents’ blushes, and much more... Only R150 (plus p&p)

Owen Williams

ANY GIVEN SUNDAY

An anthology of the best columns written by the late Owen Williams, The Southern Cross’ long-time contributor. First published in 2004, Any Given Sunday is a wonderful way to spend time with a first-class raconteur and man of deep faith. Only R80 (plus p&p)

Order from books@scross.co.za or www.books.scross.co.za

Southern Cross BOOKS

or call 021 465-5007 or buy at 10 Tuin Plein, Cape Town

talk to and a delight to know”.

I have focused on Sheena Duncan’s leadership of the Black Sash, of which she was for many years national president. But she was also involved with many other organisations, such as the South African Council of Churches (SACC), GunFree SA and the End Conscription Campaign. To each of these she gave herself with similar wholehearted enthusiasm, as AnneMarie Hendrikz details in such an engaging way in this book.

The SACC, in appointing her one of their two female vice-presidents, together with Virginia Gcabashe, found that they had a leader “who could craft resolutions, develop a constitution, know who to contact for what purpose, interpret legislation for church leaders and community activists alike, advise and encourage well-informed protest and solidarity actions, write user-friendly booklets and enable ordinary people to put them to good use, travel and speak nationally and internationally, assist with evaluations of regional councils of churches, and in many more ways respond to the needs of others when asked to do so”.

I know from personal observation how she was every bit the equal of the highest-ranking clerics in the land, but she didn’t bully the bishops—she didn’t need to.

Duncan, who died in 2010 at the age of 77, was also a realistic, practical person with no illusions about the difficulties the new South Africa

faced, when years after getting the vote millions of our citizens still have no affordable access to healthy food, clean water, security of person, housing, adequate education, electricity or transport, and remain almost powerless to change the conditions in which they find themselves, despite the obscene wealth of people at the other end of the spectrum.

Nor do the poor seem to have much hope of finding work which might help them to buy such basic rights. In fact Duncan prophesied that it would take several generations before there would be much change in South Africa.

I hope many people will read this book which, as Mary Burton says, “demonstrates the power of dedicated resistance to injustice”.

Read it and be inspired to play your part in bringing about muchneeded economic change in this country.

The Church in World War 2 THE POPE’S DILEMMA: Pius XII Faces Atrocities and Genocide in the Second World War, by Jacques Kornberg, University of Toronto Press (2015). 300 pp.

WEHRMACHT PRIESTS: Catholicism and the Nazi War of Annihilation, by Lauren Faulker Rossi. Harvard University Press (2015). 255 pp.

Reviewed by Nancy Roberts EVENTY years after the end of the Second World War, two compelling new books reveal considerable nuances of Pope Pius XII’s and German Catholic clergy’s moral response to Nazi Germany.

Lauren Faulker Rossi’s Wehrmacht Priests: Catholicism and the Nazi War of Annihilation uncovers the story of some 17 000 priests and seminarians who were conscripted into Hitler’s Wehrmacht between 1939-45, while Jacques Kornberg delves into the very real dilemma also faced by Pope Pius XII: How to remain true to Catholic principles in the face of a regime whose values could only be described as anti-Christian and amoral.

Read together, Wehrmacht Priests and The Pope’s Dilemma: Pius XII Faces Atrocities and Genocide in the Second World War are a cautionary tale about war’s challenges to morality.

At first glance, it seems hard to understand how Catholic priests and seminarians could possibly square their commitment to Christianity with their service to murderous German nationalism.

But as Rossi shows through her original study of their wartime letters, journals, reports, evaluations by military and religious superiors, and other postwar writings and interviews, most went to war willingly, believing that their spiritual duty required attending to the soldiers as military chaplains or medical workers. (Seminarians served in the general infantry.)

The handful who resisted faced summary execution by a government eager to make them into examples—witness the special barracks for priests imprisoned at Dachau.

One of the more interesting sections of Rossi’s book details her scrutiny of interviews conducted by the Catholic Military Bishop’s Office in Berlin with Wehrmacht priest-veterans some 40 years after the war. “Few [of these men] acknowledged the atrocities they witnessed or heard about, against Jews and non-Jews contemporaneously,” Rossi writes.

Years later, in interviews, more confessed to having heard disturbing accounts of atrocities; but they tended to be “defensive about the army of which they had been part”.

They identified as soldiers, not simply as priests or seminarians who had happened to wear a military uniform. In their minds, the army was quite separate from Nazi policies.

Ultimately, “they reacted like other soldiers to the bitter reality around them: with indifference, reluctance or resignation, but rarely with protests, and never with sustained or open resistance. Instead, their dedication to their fellow Christian German men gave them an excuse that on the whole

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blinded them to what that service really signified”.

As one military chaplain described his decision to join the Wehrmacht: “This was of course in certain ways a service to Adolf Hitler, but for our part, we didn’t think of it this way. The men should [be allowed to] maintain their faith in God, and despite all the difficulties through which they were living, find a foothold and remain unwavering” on their path.

Rossi, a history professor at the Catholic University of Notre Dame in Indiana, contributes substantially to Holocaust studies in this concise, appropriately critical and exhaustively researched book that will appeal to popular readers as well as academics. Elegantly written, Wehrmacht Priests is deeply thoughtful and engaging on every page.

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hile German priests and seminarians were mostly blinded to the abhorrent nature of Nazism, Pope Pius XII was not. But, 70 years after the war’s end, many still wonder why he did not publicly condemn the Nazis for the Holocaust or at the very least castigate Catholic collaborators with the evil regime.

Public opinion on the pope’s moral leadership during the Second World War has shifted from immediate postwar approval to, since the 1960s, excoriation.

Yet Pope Paul VI (1963-78) originated the move to canonise Pius XII, which has won support from every subsequent pope, including the current Pope Francis. The time is right, then, for a reappraisal of Pius XII’s moral stance vis-a-vis Nazism, and Jacques Kornberg’s monumental The Pope’s Dilemma does not disappoint.

This painstakingly researched and gracefully written analysis illuminates both how historians and popular opinion have regarded Pius XII for many past decades and how he himself viewed the Nazi scourge, in the context of the time.

Assuming the papacy in 1939, Pius II remained publicly impartial about Nazi Germany’s mass atrocities and genocide. Some have attributed his silence to anti-Semitism, anti-communism or perhaps an Continued on page 21

CLASSIFIEDS

Pope Pius XII and World War II Continued from page 20 embrace of fascism’s authoritarianism. However, Kornberg convincingly shows that Pius XII was “three-dimensional, deeply spiritual and morally anguished, struggling with difficult choices among relative evils”.

Pius retreated from strongly denouncing Nazism for several reasons that were deeply rooted in Catholic doctrines.

For the pope, “religion trumped civic and political morality”. As head of the Church, Pius XII believed he was above all charged with maintaining it, to keep Catholics in the fold where they would have ac-

cess to salvation.

This stance was quite consistent with the response of earlier popes—never publicly siding in conflicts to avoid losing Catholics on either side—and to instances of atrocities that Kornberg discusses, including Benedict XV and the Armenian genocide and Pius XI and fascist Italy. It also dovetailed with Pius XII’s approach to five Catholic countries—Croatia, France, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia—during the war.

Seen in this light, Pius XII carried out his understanding of his papal role, “as defined by longestablished Catholic doctrine”.

Kornberg judges him “a good

Christmas CrossWord solutions

SOLUTIONS TO 685. ACROSS: 1 Itch, 3 Crackers, 9 Compass, 10 Ripen, 11 Small present, 12 Rebuff, 15 Flasks, 17 Frankincense, 20 Truce, 21 Go right, 22 Praising, 23 Stud. DOWN: 1 Incisors, 2 Comma, 4 Rosary, 5 Christly care, 6 Expands, 7 Sing, 8 Call of angels, 12 Assented, 14 Bermuda, 16 Virgin, 18 Night, 19 Atop.

Our bishops’ anniversaries

This week we congratulate: December 23: Bishop Graham Rose of Dundee on his 64th birthday December 26: Archbishop Buti Tlhagale of Johannesburg on his 68th birthday.

Catholic Items

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pope, for he fulfilled his role in the mainline Catholic ecclesiology (theology of the Church) of the times, with its heavy stress on hierarchy and authoritarianism”.

Still, it is hard not to agree with Kornberg’s conclusion that the pope’s “stance during the Nazi era was a moral failure”.

Kornberg, professor emeritus of history at the University of Toronto, has given us an original and balanced analysis of Pius XII’s moral leadership that is as compelling as a novel. It will inspire much thought about dilemmas of church-state conflicts that we face in our increasingly warstruck world.—CNS

Word of the Week

Pectoral cross: A cross worn on a chain about the neck of bishops and abbots as a mark of office.

Liturgical Calendar Year C – Weekdays Cycle 2 Sunday December 20, Fourth Sunday of Advent Micah 5:1-4, Psalms 80:2-3, 15-16, 18-19, Hebrews 10:5-10, Luke 1:39-45 Monday December 21, St Peter Canisius Song of Solomon 2:8-14, Psalms 33:2-3, 1112, 20-21, Luke 1:39-45 Tuesday December 22 1 Samuel 1:24-28, 1 Samuel 2:1, 4-8, Luke 1:46-56 Wednesday December 23, St John of Kanty Malachi 3:1-4, 23-24, Psalms 25:4-5, 8-10, 14, Luke 1:57-66 Thursday December 24 2 Samuel 7:1-5, 8-12, 14, 16, Psalms 89:2-5, 27, 29, Psalms 89:2-5, 27, 29 Friday December 25, Nativity of Christ Midnight Mass: Isaiah 9:1-6, Psalms 96:1-3, 11-13, Titus 2:11-14, Luke 2:1-14 Mass at dawn: Isaiah 62:11-12, Psalms 97:1, 6, 11-12, Titus 3:4-7, Luke 2:15-20 Mass during the day: Isaiah 52:7-10, Psalms 98:1-6, Hebrews 1:1-6, John 1:1-18 Saturday December 26, St Stephen, First Martyr Acts 6:8-10; 7:54-59, Psalms 31:3-4, 6, 8, 1617, Matthew 10:17-22 Sunday December 27, Holy Family 1 Samuel 1:20-22.24-28, Psalms 84:2-3,5-6,910, 1 John 3:1-2.21-24, Luke 2:41-52

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CHRISTMAS GREETINGS

LENDERS—Brian, Jean and Laura wish all relatives, friends, priests, and religious and Mary Immaculate Queen Enthronees all the joy and love of this Blessed Christmastide.

May the Christ Child and the Holy Family surround you and your loved ones with serene peace and happiness.

WISHING my families, my in-law families, all my friends, the prayer group, the Legion of Mary, all the parishioners of Holy Family and Our Lady of Fatima Bellville, the editor and staff of The Southern Cross a Blessed Christmas. God Bless you all, from Mary da Silva.

IN MEMORIAM

ACCOM—Linnet Mavis. In loving memory of our sister who passed away on December 24, 2007. Rest in peace. Brian, Jean and Laura.

ACCOM—Ruby Mavis. In loving memory of our beloved mother on this 14th anniversary of her passing on Christmas Day, 2001. May you join the heavenly choirs of angels and share in the rich inheritance promised by our glorious Lord. May Our Blessed Lady shield you under her mantle and may the Holy Family surround you with eternal joy and peace. Brian, Jean and Laura.

MURDOCH—Michael.

Passed away 20/12/2012.

We miss his wisdom and humour. May he remain in God’s care. Ilona Murdoch, family and friends.

SNELL—Constable Quinton. Tragically died on police duty on Christmas

THANKS

DEAREST JESUS, Mary, Joseph, the Holy Spirit, St Jude and St Theresa, in thanksgiving to you for prayers answered.

HOLY SPIRIT AND ST JUDE in thanksgiving for prayers answered. Chris H.

PRAYERS

ST MICHAEL the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our protection against the malice and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him we humbly pray; and do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly host, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all evil spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls.

Amen.

PERSONAL

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morning 25/12/2012. Time unfolds another year; memories keep you ever near. Remembered by your godmother Agnes Julie.

SWARDLING—Reece, Dex (MIYAGI). Born 5th October 1988—with Christ 20th December 2012.

Three years have passed, and the deep pain remains the same. Those precious hugs and kisses, I miss so.

Our loss, heaven’s gain, until we meet again. You said yes Son, to be a warrior for our LORD. Never will the gap be filled in our home. We love and miss you so dearly. It was an honour to be your parents, Anthony and Charmaine, Olivia and Reagan, niece Trinity, and Gran Tootoo.

Loved and missed by all.

ABORTION WARNING: The truth will convict a silent Church. See

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the

S outher n C ross

Feast of the Holy Family: December 27 Readings: 1 Samuel 1:20-22, 24-28, Psalm 84:2-3, 5-6, 9-10, 1 John 3:1-2, 21-24, Luke 2:41-52

Samuel given to Temple

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and we are not at all surprised that she postpones the moment when he goes to his boarding school.

Her husband, insensitive as ever, does not really understand, but advises her to “get on with it”. Then, eventually, once the boy was weaned (possibly as late as the age of three) she goes up, with a huge array of gifts, and makes the sacrifice: “She left him there for the Lord.” It is a terrible moment, except that the Lord is in there somewhere. There is pain as well as joy in families.

The psalm for next Sunday is a beautiful poem, perhaps to make us feel better about poor little Samuel being left in the Temple.

“How lovely are your dwellings, Lord God of hosts,” exclaims the poet, “my soul is longing and yearning for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out towards the God of life.” There is confidence in what God is up to: “Look on our shield, O God, and behold the face of your Messiah.”

In the second reading, what God is doing is giving us love. “What great love the Father

OTHER Church shows great wisdom in assigning the feast of the Holy Family to the first Sunday after Christmas, such is the stress that the feast can sometimes put on even the most tightly bonded family.

The Church often reflects on the nature of family, and the appropriate way to deal with this precious and difficult institution; and for next Sunday she offers us some very challenging readings. The question in each of them in our consideration of “family” is: What is God doing here?

In the first reading, we rejoice that Hannah—miserable and mocked because she had no child (and a husband who failed to “get it”, saying “Am I not more to you than ten sons?”)—has been given what she wanted; but we know that she has promised to give to the Lord any son who might come to her.

Inevitably, a son is born to her, and it is she who has the privilege of naming the boy.

He is to be called “Samuel”, (“the name of God”). We wonder whether his mother will be able to bear to give over this beloved child,

has given us, that we should be called children of God.” This can be an important idea for people who have had a horrid experience of family life, a father who can be trusted.

We notice, though, that there is a hint of darkness, in that “The world does not know us, because it did not know him.” On the other hand, if we keep our eyes on God: “We shall be like [God], because we shall see [God] as he really is.” Not only that, but we have to perform: “We keep his commandments, and do what is pleasing in his sight.”

The key thing, it seems, is to get the family relationships right: “that we believe in the name of his son, Jesus Christ, and love each other”.

The gospel reading for the feast is Luke’s brilliant portrait of a family pilgrimage to Jerusalem, when Jesus was 12 (so some people refer to it as Jesus’ “barmitzvah”). The family ties are strained to breaking point, however, when Jesus “remained in Jerusalem—and his parents did not know”.

Luke seems to put the blame squarely on

Christmas: You’ve made it!

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time of shopping than of prayer, and more of a time of already feasting than a time of fasting as a preparation for a feast.

Today Advent is perhaps more about already celebrating Christmas than it is about preparing for it.

And the end result is that, like the biblical innkeepers who had no room for Mary and Joseph at the first Christmas, we generally arrive at Christmas with “no room at the inn”, no space in our lives for a spiritual rebirth. Our hearts are good, we want Christmas to renew us spiritually, but our lives are too pressured, too full of activity and tiredness, for us to have any real energy to make Christmas a special time of spiritual renewal for ourselves.

The spirit of Christmas is still in us, real, but lying like a neglected baby in the straw waiting to be picked up. And we do intend to pick up the baby, but simply never get around to it.

So how bad are we?

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ow, while this should challenge us to take a look at ourselves, it is not as bad as many religious critics make it out to be.

Arriving at Christmas with a life too busy and too distracted to make more room for Christ doesn’t make us bad persons. It doesn’t mean that we are mindless pagans.

And it doesn’t mean that Christ has died in our lives.

We are not bad, faithless, and pagan because we habitually arrive at Christmas too distracted, too busy, too pressured, and too

Classic Conrad

ANY of us arrive at Christmas tired, running, distracted, and already fatigued with the lights, songs, and celebrations of Christmas.

Advent is meant to be a time of preparation for Christmas; but for many of us it is not exactly a time for the kind of preparation that enables Christ to be born more deeply in our lives.

Instead our preparation for Christmas is mostly a time of making ready to celebrate with our families, friends and colleagues.

The days leading up to Christmas are rarely serene. Instead we find ourselves harried and hurried putting up decorations, shopping for gifts, sending out cards, preparing food, and attending Christmas events. Moreover, when Christmas arrives, we are already tired of Christmas carols, having heard them already, non-stop, for weeks in our shopping malls, restaurants, public squares and radio stations.

And so Christmas, itself, generally finds us more in a pressured and tired space than in a leisured and rested one. Indeed, sometimes the Christmas season is more an endurance test than a time of genuine enjoyment.

Moreover, and more seriously, if we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit that in our preparations for Christmas, we, in fact, make very little space for the spiritual, for Christ to be born more deeply in our lives. Our time of preparation is generally more of a time to prepare our houses than a time to prepare our souls, more of a

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Sunday Reflections

Jesus, the disappearing adolescent. He tells us that it was not until three days had elapsed (we can only guess at the pain they felt), that they “found him sitting in the Temple, in the middle of the teachers, listening to them, and interrogating them”.

He is making quite an impact there, but the parents “were overwhelmed”, and his mother reproaches him for the agony he has caused to “your father and me”. Then Jesus redefines the family relationship, which may not have brought much healing: “Did you not know that I had to be on my Father’s case?” But the family remains intact: “and he went down and came to Nazareth and behaved appropriately to them”.

Then comes a very important line, which we can apply to ourselves, in our family relations: “and his mother was keeping all the things in her heart”. We can do that, as we watch Jesus “growing in wisdom and years and grace before God and human beings”.

Christmas Crossword #685

Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI

Final Reflection

tired to make much of a conscious effort to make this feast a time of real spiritual renewal in our lives.

Our spiritual lethargy simply defines us as more human than angelic, more earthy than platonic, and as more sensual than spiritual. I suspect that God fully understands this condition.

Indeed, everyone struggles with this in some fashion. No one is perfect; no one gives a full place in his or her life to Christ, even at Christmas time. That should bring us some consolation.

But it should also leave us with a pressing challenge: There is too little room for Christ in our busy, distracted lives! We must work at clearing some space for Christ, at making Christmas a time of spiritual refreshment and renewal in our lives.

How do we do that?

In the days leading up to Christmas, many of us struggle to do all the things we need to do to be ready for all that needs to happen in our houses, churches, and places of work.

We need to shop for gifts, send out cards, put up lights and decorations, plan menus, buy food, attend a goodly number of Christmas parties, at church, at friends’ houses. This, added on to the normal pressures within our lives, not infrequently leaves us with the feeling: “I’m not going to make it! I won’t be ready! I won’t be ready for Christmas!” That’s a common feeling.

But being ready for Christmas, getting everything we need to do done on time, making it, does not depend upon getting everything neatly checked off on our to-do list: gifts, done; cards, done; decorations, done; food, ready; the requisite number of social obligations, completed.

Even if that list is only half done, if you find yourself in church at Christmas, if you find yourself at table with your family on Christmas day, and if you find yourself greeting your neighbours and colleagues with a little more warmth, then it doesn’t matter if you are distracted, tired, overfed, and not thinking explicitly about Jesus— you’ve made it.

St John Paul II Pilgrimage to Poland Southern Cross

Nicholas King SJ

ACROSS

1. Fingers may do it waiting to open Christmas gift (4) 3. Be crazy about what are pulled at Christmas table (8) 9. The Magi did not need it to find the Infant (7) 10. Fruit must do it to be eaten at table (5) 11. A little token of Christmas spirit (5,7) 13. Snub given to Joseph and Mary at the inn (6) 15. Vacuum containers that may hold Christmas wine (6) 17. The second of the first three gifts (12) 20. A Christmas Day squabble may end with this (5) 21. Instruction to the Magi to proceed on course? (2,5) 22. Glorifying God in the highest (8) 23. Garnish the Christmas gammon with jewellery? (4)

DOWN

1. You may need them to chew tough turkey (8) 2. Brief pause in the Christmas message (5) 4. Prayers of Christmas Mysteries (6) 5. Richly caters for Jesus’ concern for us (8,4) 6. Girth does it after Christmas dinner (7) 7. The herald angels do it (4) 8. Summons of the shepherds in the fields (4,2,6) 12. Our Lady did, to the angel’s invitation (8) 14. Type of shorts you may prefer on a hot Christmas Day (7) 16. A ... shall conceive and bear a son (Mt 1) (6) 18. In the carol it’s silent and holy (5) 19. Where the star may be on the Christmas tree (4) Solutions on page 21

CHURCH CHUCKLE

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FEW days before Christmas, two boys were spending the night at their grandmother’s house. Before they went to bed, they knelt down to say their prayers.

Suddenly, the younger one began to pray very loudly: “Dear Lord, please ask Santa Claus to bring me a mountain bike, new soccer boots and a Star Wars Lego set.” His older brother asked: “Why are you shouting your prayers? God isn’t deaf.”

“I know,” the younger boy replied, “but Granny is.”

A journey to the places of St John Paul II’s life and devotions, led by a Bishop who knows Poland intimately.

Led by Bishop Stan Dziuba 13 - 21 May 2016

Kraków | Wadowice (on St John Paul II’s birthday) | Black Madonna of Częstochowa | Niepokalanów (St Maximilan Kolbe) | Divine Mercy Sanctuary | Warsaw | Kalwaria Zebrzydowska (with miraculous icon) | Zakopane | Wieliczka Salt Mine (with Mass!)

CHRISTMAS Iraqis re-enact the Nativity at Ainkawa refugee camp near Irbil, Iraq.

Christmas bells did not ring in ISIS-controlled Mosul and Christian villages last year for the first time in 1 600 years. (Photo: Sahar Mansour/CNS)

People dressed as villagers from ancient Bethlehem sing Christmas carols as they take part in a re-enactment of the Nativity in the town of Arcos de la Frontera, Spain. (Photo: Jon Nazca, Reuters/CNS)

Children dressed as angels react as they attend Christmas Mass at a Catholic church in Beijing.

(Photo: Kim Kyung-Hoon, Reuters/CNS)

Christmas around the World

A girl sits near Christmas decorations in a basement used as a bomb shelter in Donetsk, Ukraine, last December. (Photo: Igor Tkachenko, Reuters/CNS)

A Palestinian girl in a Santa suit claps as she watches a parade in Manger Square outside the church of the Nativity on Christmas Eve in Bethlehem, West Bank. (Photo: Debbie Hill)

The Christmas tree and Nativity scene in St Peter’s Square at the Vatican last year, with new LED lighting on the facade and dome of the basilica.

(Photo: Paul Haring/CNS)

The Southern Cross, December 16 to December 22, 2015

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A large Nativity Scene is displayed in the church of St Anthony of Padua in Istanbul, Turkey. (Photo: Günther Simmermacher) Traditional carollers dressed as the Wise Men perform in the presidential office in Vienna, Austria. The carollers, known in German as Sternsinger (star singers) collect money for Catholic charity projects between Christmas and Epiphany.

(Photo: Heinz-Peter Bader, Reuters/CNS) Snow rests on the roof of a stall sporting Christmas decorations on the Viktualienmarkt in Munich, Germany.

(Photo: Günther Simmermacher)

Catholic Liturgical Arts

Wishing all our customers Peace and Joy this Christmas Thank you for your support in 2015 and for coming year 2016

Tel: +27 11 782 3135, catholicliturgicalarts@gmail.com

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The Southern Cross, December 16 to December 22, 2013

CHRISTMAS

God’s special gift to humans

About 15 billion years ago a cosmic blast occurred that we have come to call the Big Bang. Our universe was on its way. But, said Archbishop Denis Hurley, God was in it, guiding it and governing it—the first creative expression of his divine presence that we know.

In 2003 Archbishop DENIS HURLEY OMI wrote the Christmas guest editorial in The Southern Cross. It probably was the last of his writings to be published in his lifetime.

To mark the centenary of the late archbishop’s birth this year, we reproduce this inspiring article here.

CATHEDRAL BOOKSHOP

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CHRISTMAS PRAYER O God our loving Father, help us rightly to remember the birth of Jesus, that we may share in the song of the Angels, the gladness of the shepherds and the worship of the three wise men.

Close the door of hate and open the door of love all over the world Deliver us from evil by the Blessing that Christ brings, and teach us to be merry with clear hearts May the Christmas morning make us happy to be thy children and the Christmas evening bring us to our beds with grateful thoughts forgiving and forgiven for Jesus’ sake… ..Robert Louis Stevenson

WITH GOD’S BLESSINGS FOR THE NEW YEAR OUR LOVE

Norah and Denise

10 Park Lane, Port Elizabeth

The Christmas Story…

We wish our Catholic Schools and all in the Catholic Education network a blessed Christmas and Peace , Hope and Joy for 2016

BOUT 15 billion years ago a cosmic blast occurred that we have come to call the Big Bang. Our universe was on its way.

It was unrecognisable—just a chaotic cauldron of invisible particles crashing and cavorting at a temperature of about a million degrees centigrade.

But God was in it, guiding it and governing it. It was the first creative expression of his divine presence that we know.

As billions of years unfolded, minute forces gifted with gravity evolved into gigantic galaxies. The first stars were born.

About 500 million years ago our solar system emerged with, at its centre, a star we call the sun and nine planets, including our earth, orbiting around it. Our solar system belongs to the galaxy we call the Milky Way. Besides our sun, there are about another hundred billion suns in the Milky Way, and besides our galaxy countless billions of others.

And in all of this God is present, sustaining, upholding, promoting and perfecting.

A collectivity of circumstances affecting our planet came into existence with an outstanding combination of factors.

They were to produce continents and oceans, rocks and soil, a wonderful atmosphere, bacteria, insects, fish and reptiles, dinosaurs and other animals, and finally the human family with its miraculous gifts of intelligence and free will.

In all this God was present, promoting and directing, his presence taking on a new dimension as humans began to experience a sense of the divine.

That sense took on a variety of forms until God revealed himself to Abraham and a wonderful new intimacy arose between God and people,

which deepened and intensified through Moses, Elijah, Isaiah and other prophets.

Then came the day when Gabriel brought God’s message to Mary and invited her to become the mother of his son, divine like himself. She consented and an ovum in her body was miraculously fertilised by the Holy Spirit. The Word was made flesh.

Nine months later that Word emerged from her body at Bethlehem, and a new and intense intimacy between God and his people grew out of the life and labour of Jesus, his death on the cross, his glorious resurrection, his return to his Father in glory and his sending of the Holy Spirit from the Father to share their glory with the human family and not only the human family but also the rest of creation.

As St Paul says: “The whole creation itself might be freed from its slavery to corruption and brought into the same glorious freedom as the children of God” (Romans 8:21).

What an extraordinary development this is of the presence of God in the universe, a presence nourished and intensified by another expression of divine presence—the presence of Jesus in the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist.

We give thanks to God for his presence among us through the spectacular mystery of creation and the sanctifying mystery of salvation and we celebrate them both with special joy at this time.

Christmas guest editorials

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INCE 2001, the Christmas editorial in The Southern Cross has been written by an invited guest editorialist, except in 2002 when editor Günther Simmermacher did the honours himself.

Of the 14 Christmas guest editorials since 2001, three were written by bishops—and one by a future bishop—and another three by lay people, who include two of the three women on the list.

Since 2011, The Southern Cross also invites guest editorialists for the Easter issue.

The following have written Christmas guest editorials: Cardinal

Wilfrid Napier OFM of Durban (2001), the late Archbishop emeritus Denis Hurley OMI of Durban (2003), the late Mgr Jan Jaworski (2004), Fr Emil Blaser OP (2005), the late Prof Peter Hunter (2006), Fr Ralph de Hahn (2007), Bishop Stephen Brislin of Kroonstad (2008, now archbishop of Cape Town), Fr Victor Phalana (2009, now bishop of Klerksdorp), Sr Judy Coyle IHM (2010), Ms Frances Correia (2010), Fr Seán Wales CSsR (2012), Fr S’milo Ngadi (2013), Ms Puleng Matsaneng (2014), Fr Patrick Rakeketsi CSS (2015).

The PHOENIX BURNS PROJECT thanks all donors and friends for their support during 2015 and wishes all readers of The Southern Cross a blessed Christmas and a wonderful New Year

Give your child the gift of a Catholic Education. Visit www.cso.za.org

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The Southern Cross, December 16 to December 22, 2015

CHRISTMAS

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The three comings of Christ During Advent we have reflected on what can be called the “three comings of Christ”—past, future and present. MGR FRANCIS MANNION, a popular columnist in the US, explains.

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A sculpture of the Madonna and child on top of church of Santa Maria della Grazie in San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy. (Photo: Günther Simmermacher)

CB Industrial & Fastener Suppliers

A blessed and peaceful Christmas season to all our faithful clients, family and friends Management & Staff, CB Industrial & Fastener Suppliers, 1 Plein St, Sidwell, Port Elizabeth 041 453 7536 FELIZ NAVIDAD

URING Advent we celebrate what are sometimes referred to as the “three comings of Christ”: l the coming of Christ in Bethlehem, l the coming of Christ in glory at the end of time, and l the coming of Christ today in the sacraments and life of the Church.

The first coming of Christ remains the central event of human history. All time is dated from the birth of Christ. The centuries leading up to Christ’s birth are numbered B.C.: before Christ.

This year is officially the 2015th year since the birth of Jesus. Even from a purely human point of view, no figure approaches Jesus Christ in significance. No figure has had such an impact on the whole course of human affairs.

The effects of Christ, and of Christianity in general, upon the world are incalculable. Without

I

t is important that we understand correctly the meaning of the return of Christ in glory. The end of all things will not be a matter of Christ returning to a world from which he departed at the ascension, but the appearance of Christ who is hiddenly present in the world as the latter continues on its journey.

What we are awaiting in Advent is the full blossoming of God’s grace working itself out in human history.

Christ’s return will be, by God’s grace, the marriage of heaven and earth.

The third coming of Christ occurs in the present: in the vital, living action of Christ today in the

THE SERVANTS OF CHRIST THE PRIEST Secular Institute of Consecrated and Apostolic Life:

Founder: The Very Rev Fr André Joseph BLAIS OMI (1902-1992)

community of the Church and in the lives of Christian believers.

Christ comes today in the gift of the holy Eucharist in which we are privileged to share, in the sacraments of Christian life, in the living wisdom of the Christian tradition, in the vocations consecrated for each of us in baptism, in the magnificent service and charity of Christian individuals, communities, and institutions across the face of the earth.

Certainly the Church and its people have had, and always will have, an ambiguous and imperfect history.

We need only remind ourselves of the horrendous sexual abuse crisis that has recently haunted the Church.

But what would the world be like if there were no more Christian believers, no more sacraments, no more charity in the name of Christ?

What if Christianity were to disappear? What if there were no more people like Bl Mother Teresa of Kolkata? The world would become a very different place. We should never underestimate the power of Christianity in our own time.

These three comings of Christ are what we invoke during this holy season. We call upon Christ’s presence that we may know the effects of his historic birth; we await the saving power of Christ’s return in glory; and we look in faith to his sacramental presence now.—CNA

St Anthony’s Home Residential Care, Family Reunification and Family Preservation Programs for orphaned, abandoned, abused and neglected children and their families

We thank everyone who supported us

Peace and Blessings to all our friends and benefactors and all those associated with our Institutes during the Holy season of Advent; Christmas and Christmastide May you receive many graces and blessings through the year of mercy and compassion in the year of our Lord 2016 Let us put Christ back into Christmas and you should be my witness From the Director General the very Rev Fr Cosmas Mataoone and priests, all lay brother Servants of Christ the Priest

during this year and wish everyone a blessed Christmas time, Merry Christmas and a

very happy New Year!

Contact St. Anthony’s Home P.O.Box 1824, Newcastle, 2940 Phone: 034 366 7299 Fax: 034 366 7223 E-Mail admin@stanthonyshome.org Website www.stanthonyshome.org

St Benedict School

Springfield Convent School Springfield Convent School wishes Cardinal Napier, Archbishops, Bishops, Clergy, Cabra Dominican Sisters, Parents, Staff & Pupils a blessed and peaceful Christmas

May peace be your gi at Christmas and your blessing all year through

Christ, the world would not be what it is in all its positive aspects.

The world in which we live is by no means perfect, and it will not be so until all things are finally transfigured and perfected in Christ. But we should never underestimate the radical alteration of history that came about through the birth of Christ into the affairs of humankind.

Second, Christ will come in glory at the end of time (the “second coming”). The Advent scriptures and prayers draw our minds to the coming of Christ in glory. Indeed, all the way through Advent, the primary liturgical theme is of Christ’s return in glory. At the end of the ages, Christ will come again and the heavens and the earth will be united.

from the Board of Governors, ƐƚĂī ĂŶĚ ƉƵƉŝůƐ ŽĨ De La Salle Holy Cross College.

May DĂLJ LJyou ŽƵ ďbe Ğ Őgiven ŝǀĞŶ ƚŚthe Ğ true ƚƌƵĞ blessings ďůĞƐƐŝŶŐƐ Žof Ĩ Christmas: ŚƌŝƐƚŵĂƐ͗ love, joy, peaceand and hope love, jo y, peace hope.

ǁǁǁ͘ĚĞůĂƐĂůůĞŚŽůLJĐƌŽƐƐĐŽůůĞŐĞ͘ĐŽ͘njĂ ǁǁǁ͘ĚĞůĂƐĂůůĞŚŽůLJĐƌŽƐƐĐŽůůĞŐĞ͘ĐŽ͘njĂ

St Benedict School wishes all their families and past families a Blessed Christmas.

31 Mariannhill Road, Pinetown, Tel 031 7026989, secretary@sbskzn.co.za, www.stbenedictschool.co.za

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The Southern Cross, December 16 to December 22, 2015

CHRISTMAS

Our very own Christmas story — on the road Sometimes we encounter Christmas stories in unexpected places, as WINNIE GRAHAM found one wet December day.

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Our residents and staff thank you for your encouragement and support in 2015.

May 2016 bring you peace, joy and good health.

We are reminded of the words of our beloved founder, Domitilla Rota Hyams:

“These children, with a far-away look, have souls more beautiful than the sun.

They are angels.

They are like lightning conductors on whom we should gaze with veneration. God could have created them normal, but they are as they are. There must be a reason for it which we cannot fathom.

So we accept their creation as God’s design and accept them as a sign of His predilection.” confirming what our founder Domitilla Rota Hyams believed: “The severely handicapped are the privileged ‘meeting points’ between God and man”

www.littleeden.org.za +27 (0) 11 609 7246 001-827NPO

OME years ago my late husband and I were returning from rural KwaZulu-Natal when we spotted an old man trudging along a country road.

It was December, but the day was damp and the hiker wrapped in an old raincoat that hung to his ankles. My husband pulled up next to him.

“Can I give you a ride?” he asked. “Perhaps we can drop you somewhere?”

The man hesitated before taking a seat in the car. Maybe we could give him a lift till the road divided—one to the Free State, the other to Johannesburg?

What’s your name? Joseph.

Going home for Christmas? I was making conversation and our guest responded politely.

He fetched a letter from his pocket—rather grubby from much handling—and showed it to me. It was written in an African language which I could not read. Then he told me his daughter was expecting a baby and he wanted to be with her when the child arrived.

Interesting, I observed, that a father wanted to share the happy event. Usually it was the mother’s prerogative. Yet, despite the joyous news, the man seemed inordinately sad.

I asked where he was from and how long he’d been walking.

He answered in faltering English.

He came from the Eastern Cape and had been on the road nearly two months. He had left in October and because he had no money for train fares had decided to walk.

Sometimes he slept in the open but generally people along the way had been kind. They had shared their food and quite often provided him with shelter at night. Then he sank back in his seat and fell asleep.

W

hen we reached the next town, my husband stopped at a cafe and emerged with lunch: meat pies and cold drinks.

The three of us ate in silence.

There was so much I wanted to ask, but suddenly I was shy. My husband was more practical.

“Where does your daughter live?” he asked. “There is a bus station here. I’ll buy a ticket for you and you’ll be with her in a couple of hours.”

The old man produced the letter just as my husband opened our map book. Then the two men walked to the ticket office

together. When they emerged, the old man was transformed, his face alight. The weariness that had been so much part of his persona had lifted. He would indeed be with his daughter by Christmas.

We said our farewells and exchanged Christmas wishes. Then he was gone.

“Strange thing,” my husband said. “He wasn’t going to Bloem.

He wanted a ticket to Bethlehem [in the Free State]. His name is Joseph and his daughter is expecting a Christmas baby...”

“Was he having us on?” I asked.

“Not at all,” my husband answered, He was genuine all right.

It’s just one of those glorious coincidences that make this season so joyful. It’s our own Christmas story... We are blessed to have been involved.”

We would like to wish our donors and all those involved in Catholic Education a blessed Christmas and a prosperous new year.

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Contact us 229 Jorrisen Street Sunnyside, Pretoria 012 341 6705 www.catholiccentre.co.za

Prayerfully wishing all my friends and supporters clergy and religious - a glorious and fruitful Christmas deeply touched by the love and peace of Jesus, the incarnate God

FATHER RALPH de HAHN

CHRISTMAS

The Southern Cross, December 16 to December 22, 2013

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Young shepherd came to see the light The Blind Beggar is a short Christmas story by FR RALPH DE HAHN

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ROM the age of nine I had cared for the lambs on the hills outside Bethlehem’s hills. It was such joy to cuddle those woolly bodies.

Then one night a furious storm broke over the hills. I hurried to take shelter under a tree; it was there that a bolt of lightning threw me to the ground and blinded me.

Still, the touch of the lambs in my arms was my joy.

I will never forget that very peculiar night when my brother shepherds experienced a visitor from the heavens.

We all heard some heavenly singing; I saw nothing, but with them I felt that terrifying thrill as the visiting angel announced the birth of a Messiah.

Through my blindness a rich glow filled my mind and my heart thrilled with delight; I knew something extraordinary was happening.

My brothers were instructed to find a child in a stable, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. I remained with the sheep.

On their return my brothers spoke of a young mother and a beautiful babe; it was just as the angel had said.

A “Saviour”, said the angel—one hopefully sent to rescue all of our land from foreign domination.

But my brothers said that there was no sign of a conquering Messiah, but only of sheer poverty. Yet, somehow, despite the veil of darkness, I thrilled at the power I felt in

The shepherds of Bethlehem are pictured in a mural in the Shepherd Fields church at Beit Sahour, just outside Bethlehem, West Bank. (Photo: Günther Simmermacher) the name “Saviour”.

I

t was many years later, while I was on a journey along the river Jordan, when I sensed some unusual excitement in the air. I was told crowds were gathering on the banks of the river around a wild man of the desert; he was demanding them to come forward for a baptism of repentance.

As I drew closer to the crowds I heard the preacher call upon the “Lamb of God”.

I wondered—indeed, I was troubled deep within—which of my lambs could possibly belong to God alone! This precious hour I have never forgotten.

Then followed weeks and months of rumours and astonishing stories of some remarkable prophet performing miraculous acts, healing the deaf, the blind and the dumb.

He even made cripples walk again, people said.

People were murmuring that he might be the promised Messiah.

They said his name was Jesus of Nazareth—but surely no prophet would ever come from a little village like this Nazareth!

In my darkness there is so much time to reflect and ponder and search the heart and memories.

I know the prophecies speak of a Messiah of David’s line to be born in David’s city. It was as I pondered just that when a bright light flashed behind my dead eyes. Bethlehem!

The angel’s message all those years ago. The stable! “A saviour is born to us!”

Could this baby be the Lamb of God whom that desert preacher at the river Jordan had proclaimed. This strange traveller moving from place to place proclaiming the coming of the kingdom with a power and majesty beyond the power of our magicians, a power unknown to man, or to Caesar, or Rome, or even Israel.

It was then that I decided to search for him, for I was touched by the belief that I was present that night when he was announced by the heavenly visitors on the Bethlehem hills.

I

was now a beggar, a blind beggar among friends who served as my guides. We had settled in Jericho, not far from the river Jordan.

One day I was seated on the pavement when a multitude of people passed by, and there was great excitement in the air.

“What is it?” I asked my friends.

“It’s a crowd, like a procession, leaving the city,” they replied. Then they added: “Yes, it appears they are following Jesus the Nazarene.”

My heart told me I had found him. Was the Nazarene Jesus of Bethlehem; the Jesus of David’s

line? The Saviour announced by the angel? The excitement kindled a fire within me.

“Son of David,” I cried, “I know you! I was there! Have pity on me!”

My friends scolded me and pushed me down. But again I stood up, crying out with all my vocal power: “Son of David, babe of Bethlehem, have pity on me!”

The crowds were hushed; I sensed a strange waiting silence.

The procession seemed to have stopped. I heard some murmuring.

My friend touched me and said: “He is calling for you.”

I was gently led to him; a holy fear seized me. I stumbled forward.

I stood before a presence such as I had never felt before. A gentle hand touched my shoulder. “What do you want me to do for you?” spoke a kindly but majestic voice.

“Master,” I stuttered, “Lord, that I may see you…that I may see again.”

A silence hung heavily over the huge crowd, suddenly filled with love-filled words: “Open your eyes, receive your sight—your faith has saved you!”

Before my tearful eyes stood the Lamb of God, the Babe of Bethlehem, in a light that could come only from above. The crowds broke into praise glorifying God. I followed him into the heart of his kingdom. This is my story.

My name is Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus (Mark 10:46). n Fr Ralph de Hahn’s collection of short stories, Let Me Tell You a Story, was published earlier this year. It can be ordered at R100 from the Cape Town chancery, Catholic Bookshop or parish repositories. All proceeds go to the building fund of the archdiocese of Cape Town.

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The Southern Cross, December 16 to December 22, 2015

CHRISTMAS

20 things you didn’t know about Christmas Did you know that Bethlehem has three official Christmases? Or why the traditional Christmas colours are green and red (and gold)? GÜNTHER SIMMERMACHER unpacks 20 facts about Christmas which you might not know—plus one you should know.

Shahrbaraz spared the church.

Christmas and the pagans The very early Christians did not attach much importance to the feast of the Nativity. Some sources suggest that the feast had no specific date, but rather was a “floating” feast. The principal feast was Easter (as the Church still maintains today). The celebration of the feast of the Nativity is first mentioned in a surviving document from 336, in the Roman Deposito Martyrum—before Pope Julius set the feast’s date officially on December 25.

The colours of Christmas

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HE two colours that are usually associated with Christmas, green and red, have a Christian significance: Green represents new life and rebirth; red represents the blood the new-born Saviour will shed for our salvation. Sometimes a third colour is used: gold, representing light and the new Kingdom.

Little town of Bethlehem In Bethlehem, the birthplace of Our Lord, there are three Christmas celebrations. Catholics and Protestants have their Christmas celebrations on December 24 and 25; the Orthodox Churches have theirs on January 6 and 7 (the calendar variance dates back to the introduction of the Gregorian calendar in the West); and the Armenians on January 18 and 19, since their Christmas is celebrated on the feast of the Epiphany, and their date adheres to the Julian calendar.

Received wisdom claims that the Church set the date of Jesus’ birth on December 25 to hijack the pagan celebrations of Saturnalia and the Sol Invictus. The methods of celebrating Christmas might have borrowed from pagan celebrations, but the date most likely was based on the calculation of Jerusalem scholar Sextus Julius Africanus in 221AD—half a century before the Romans had the only celebration of the Sol Invictus recorded on a December 25. Sextus Julius Africanus calculated that the Annunciation could be dated to March 25. He added nine months of pregnancy to arrive at a December 25 birth.

St Francis and Christmas

The location of Jesus’ birth, marked by a silver star in the crypt of Bethlehem’s church of the Nativity, was venerated by the earliest Christians. In the second century the Romans built pagan structures over the site, thereby signposting it for generations until the unbanning of Christianity. Construction for the first church of the Nativity began in 327. It was burnt down by the Samaritans in 529, and rebuilt in 565. That is the present church of the Nativity.

The rebuilt church of the Nativity was spared destruction during the Persian sack of the Holy Land in 614. The invaders’ general, Shahrbaraz, spotted mosaics of the Three Wise Men in Persian dress on the church’s walls. Touched by what he understood to be a show of respect for his people,

St Francis of Assisi invented the Nativity Scene in 1223 in a forest at Greccio, in Italy’s Lazio region. He used actual people for that, including a baby. His contemporary St Bonaventure later claimed that the straw on which the baby slept “miraculously cured all diseases of cattle, and many other pestilences”.

Around the same time as he invented the Nativity Scene, St Francis also wrote what is considered the very first Christmas carol, “Psalmus in Nativitate”, a hymn that could be sung outside the liturgy. The idea caught on quickly and spread throughout Europe. It was another Franciscan,

Bl Jacopone of Todi (1230-1306), who first produced Christmas hymns in the vernacular.

nounce the birth of Christ. The Mass is therefore known as the Misa del Gallo (Mass of the Rooster).

Singing at Christmas

Christmas and the arts

The first Anglican Christmas carol was “While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks”. Before its appearance in 1700, only the Psalms of David were sung in Anglican churches. Two melodies are used for it today: that of the 1553 song “Winchester Old” by Christopher Tye is commonly used in Britain and its former colonies, and an aria from Händel’s 1728 opera Siroe is generally used in North America.

The Christmas song “Do You Hear What I Hear” was written in October 1962 by the French songwriter Noël Regney and his songwriter wife Gloria Shayne Baker as a plea for peace during the widespread fears of a nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis that month.

By far the most successful Christmas movie at the Oscars is Miracle on 34th Street, from 1947 (pictured below). In the film, Santa Claus must prove in court that he is real. It won Oscars for Supporting Actor (Edmund Gwenn, as Santa Claus), Original Story and Best Screenplay, and was nominated for Best Movie (losing to Gentleman’s Agreement). The female lead, the doubting events coordinator and mother, was played by the Catholic actress Maureen O’Hara, who died in October this year.

The Christmas song “Jingle Bells” was originally written in 1857 by James Lord Pierpont as “One Horse Open Sleigh” for the US holiday of Thanksgiving. Soon it was adapted for Christmas. “Jingle Bells” became the first song to be broadcast from space when astronauts Tom Stafford and Wally Schirra played it on a harmonica and sleigh bells on December 16, 1965.

St Nicholas and Santa It is well known that Santa Claus is based on St Nicholas, a bishop in what is now Turkey. Before he became a jolly fat man, he was an austere authority figure who would reward children who were good and punish those who weren’t. The image of Santa on a flying sleigh might derive from a Norse legend of the god Odin riding Sleipnir, an eight-legged flying horse. Like St Nicholas, Odin rewarded good and punished naughty children.

Every year some 20 000 Santas are trained in the United States for deployment in malls, department stores and other public places. Their training includes keeping a jolly demeanour even when pressured by a badly behaving public. They are also instructed not to eat garlic, onions or beans before going on Santa duty. In London’s Oxford Street, 20 budding Santas are trained each year in matters such as the latest TV games, music and toys so that they can converse with the

children on their laps.

The war on Christmas In 1649 the British leader Oliver Cromwell and his fellow Puritans outlawed Christmas as a “decadent” (and Catholic) feast.

The ban stayed in place until 1660. A year before that, the Puritans in America also banned it, until 1681. Those caught celebrating Christmas were fined five shillings and stood to be accused of being enemies of Christianity.

It became a recognised holiday in the US only in 1870. So the “War on Christmas” goes back 350 years and was initially waged by Christians.

Christmas traditions Most people know that the Christmas tree came to England and the rest of the Anglophone world from Germany in the 19th century.

There it had been a tradition for a long time, possibly going back to the 8th century, when St Boniface was converting the Germanic tribes.

The oldest known reference to the Christmas tree in print dates to 1531. One tradition claims that Martin Luther was the first person to decorate a Christmas tree.

On Christmas trees in Poland and Ukraine one might find silver and golden spiders or spider webs among the decorations. This is based on a legend which claims that a spider wove a blanket for baby Jesus.

In Bolivia, people take roosters to midnight Mass, in the belief that a rooster was the first animal to an-

Author Harper Lee was able to finish her classic 1960 book To Kill A Mockingbird only because her friends collected funds that allowed her to take a year off to complete her manuscript; the money was presented to her as a Christmas gift.

The film of the book, with Catholic actor Gregory Peck in the lead role, was released in the US on Christmas Day 1962.

From 1963 to 1969, The Beatles produced special Christmas records which were available only to members of official Beatles fan clubs on flexi-disc. They consisted mostly of spoken words with snatches of Christmas songs. All four Beatles went on to release solo Christmas records.

Lastly, here’s one you should know: there is nothing disrespectful about writing “Xmas”, as many Christians angrily claim. The letter X in our alphabet indicates the Greek letter Chi, which is the first letter of Christ’s name in Greek (Χριστός). It might annoy us when people write Xmas as a lazy shortcut, but its roots are ancient and solidly Christian.

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“Throughout the history of humanity, God will always be the one who is present, close, provident holy, and merciful.” Pope Francis

May the love of Our Lord embrace you this Christmas and throughout 2016!

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We wish all our customers, friends and families and all Southern Cross readers Christmas blessings and a New Year filled with peace and joy.