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"Christmas put to the test of Covid-19 and controversies: tradition resists"

2021-12-24T10:49:33.501Z


FIGAROVOX / TRIBUNE - Despite the Covid-19 with its share of thwarted hopes and the attacks of "progressivism" on the Catholic tradition, Father Barthélémy is delighted to see each year the popularity of the midnight mass and moments shared with the family at Christmas.


Father Barthélémy Port is parish priest of Sainte-Cécile parish in Boulogne-Billancourt.

From year to year, the controversies over the celebration of Christmas and its rites are repeated and radicalized; after the banned cribs, now it's wishing a merry Christmas party which is prohibited by a note from the European Commission. But despite these repeated scratches, each year, a large and colorful crowd meets in the churches for night masses. These buildings have never seen such crowds, either on All Saints' Day, or on Palm Sunday, or even for Easter. The Christian tradition has always seen in this last feast, the summit of faith and of the liturgy. The Christian people in their broadest layers seem to have chosen Christmas as an essential moment of celebration and meditation. While recognizing recklessness to identify what would constitute thecentral idea of ​​Christianity, Cardinal Newman is one of the rare theologians to admit that for his part he would choose the Incarnation as the central point from which everything flows, as the quintessence of Revelation.

The most cynical will see in this affluence of Christmas, the remains of a traditional conformism, see of an unconscious need of regression towards the flavors of childhood… Perhaps… but it would be so simplistic and presumptuous to reduce to these few elements the only origins of this broad movement which does not deny itself, in spite of a decline in the religious practice. The reality is certainly much more intimate and complex. What if religion could offer beyond faith, questions, certainties or doubts, a more universal symbolic space than one could imagine? What if the Christmas party joined themes that express needs shared by many, thwarted needs, prevented by these last months of Covid-19?

The feast of Christmas celebrated in the heart of winter, is based on the symbolism of the light that chases the night.

“The people who walked in darkness saw a great light, over the land of darkness a light shone,”

announces the prophet Isaiah. Man cannot live without a horizon or depth of field; in order to live, he needs to hope. This need to hope has been undermined in recent months, as the Covid-19 crisis has taken place over a long period of time, which has become interminable, which hinders our ability to project ourselves. In many ways our horizon has narrowed as in the foam of Boris Vian's days. Those who hoped for mass vaccination see their hope dashed.

Each Christmas year is an invitation to renew these family relationships which, although tinged with ambivalences and complexities, remain fundamental.

Father Barthélémy

For Christians, the feast of Christmas is also the celebration of a God who comes close to establishing a relationship with man. Psychologist John Bowlby has shed light on how from childhood this need for attachment and relationship is at least as fundamental as the need for nourishment; that without relation the little child is condemned to die. Each Christmas year is an invitation to renew these family relationships which, although tinged with ambivalences and complexities, remain fundamental. Here again the health crisis has sown trouble. For months, the watchword was social distancing, contravening this need for relationship, so constitutive of our nature, that Aristotle defined man as a political animal. If this distance is less and less respected,subways and stores still bear the scars.

The feast of Christmas is finally the celebration of the beauty of the human body and its dignity: God takes a body. It is easy to forget how shocking this "innovation" of Christianity was. It was foolish for a Greek philosopher to associate the flesh and the spirit. How could he who contains everything be contained? How did the Eternal come into time? For centuries, heresies have questioned this point of the Christian faith. The Platonic vision wanted the body to be the tomb of the soul. The revelation at Christmas of a God who assumes human nature transforms this paradigm. The body is not to dominate or to fight but to live and inhabit. During the Covid-19 crisis our relationship with the body was damaged. He has become the instrument of all suspicion.You have to mask yourself, soap yourself, hydroalcoholize yourself. It is no longer possible to touch each other or even to smile at each other. I admit being worried about how quickly we have incorporated these changes in behavior. We need action, words are not enough. If the word was enough, God would not have incarnated.

Rather than reviving sad passions, let us find in this festival of light, the opportunity to nourish our need to find ourselves, to dream, to love and to hope.

Father Barthélémy

Many of us fear family celebrations this year because of debates on compulsory vaccination, on the merits of health measures against the backdrop of an emerging electoral campaign.

The risk is real… it could tarnish this Christmas truce and make us forget the song of the angels:

"Peace on earth to the men whom God loves"

.

Rather than reviving sad passions, let us find in this festival of light, the opportunity to nourish our need to find ourselves, to dream, to love and to hope.

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2021-12-24

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