Pastoral Letter
Dear Friends,
Christmas is coming once again. I don't know about you, but I don't feel very Christmassy at the moment. Granted I am writing this article in the middle of November, but even so, there doesn't seem to be a lot of 'good cheer'in the air at the moment. Even the retailers are anxious because people seem to be reigning in their Christmas spending this year.
I think there is a lot of anxiety about the future for many families this Christmas, with so much uncertainty about employment prospects. It is a fact that Christmas can be a depressing time for many people, particularly those who have recently lost a loved one, or who are facing a personal crisis in their lives, or who are ill, or lonely or anxious.
There is a lovely story about a nine-year-old girl was walking with her friend down the street, sliding on the ice about two weeks before Christmas. The two of them were talking about what they hoped to get for Christmas. They stopped to talk to an old man named Harry, who was on his knees pulling weeds from around a large oak tree in his front garden. He wore a frayed, woollen jacket and a pair of worn garden gloves. His fingers were sticking out the ends, blue from the cold.
As Harry responded to the girls, he told them he was getting the front garden in shape as a Christmas present to his mother, who had passed away several years before. His eyes brimmed with tears as he patted the old oak. "My mother was all I had. She loved her garden and her trees, so I do this for her at Christmas." His words touched the girls and soon they were down on their hands and knees helping him to weed around the trees. It took the three of them the rest of the day to complete the task.. When they had finished, Harry pressed 50p into each of their hands. "I wish I could pay you more, but it's all I've got right now," he said. The girls had often passed that way before and as they walked on they remembered that the house was shabby, with no wreath, no Christmas tree or other decorations to add cheeriness; just the lonely figure of Harry, sitting by his window. The 50 pence piece seemed to burn a hole of guilt in the one little girl's mind as they returned to their homes. The next day she called her friend and they agreed to put their 50 pence pieces in a jar marked "Harry's Christmas Present" and then they began to seek out small jobs to earn more. Every penny they earned went into the jar.
Two days before Christmas, they had enough to buy new gloves and a Christmas card. Christmas Eve found them on Harry's doorstep singing carols. When he opened the door, they presented him with the gloves wrapped in pretty paper, the card and a mince pie still warm from the oven. With trembling hands, he tore the paper from the gloves, and then to their astonishment, he held them to his face and wept. Christmas reminds us that God came into his world as 'the word made flesh', not in order for us to have an excuse for a jolly time, and to eat drink and be merry, but because He cares about the real us. He cares about our loneliness, our fears, our pain, our worries, our depression and our deepest inner needs. He wants us to experience the fullness of His love, and to be filled with the hope that stems from a deep and loving relationship with Him.
As St John says in that wonderful opening passage to his Gospel 'Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God -children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.'(John 1:12/13)
I wish you all a very happy and blessed Christmas.