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The Most Reverend

Robert Rabbat

By the Mercy of God

Melkite Catholic Eparch of Australia and New Zealand

 To

The Clergy, my fellow ministers at the Altar; the Religious

& All the Faithful of our Holy Eparchy.

A Pastoral Letter for Christmas 2011

Christ is Born! Glorify Him!

Christmas: The Family Feast Par Excellence

The celebration of Christmas weaves together the traditional religious observances together with many social and folk customs. The popular aspects of the yearly feast became increasingly elaborate in the English speaking world, including Australia, during the reign of Queen Victoria. In this period, Christmas trees began to be part of the Christmas rituals of ordinary households. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were influential in promoting the use of Christmas cards. In some aspects, it was during the nineteenth century that Christmas, in Western Europe, was greatly sentimentalized.

Perhaps one of the distinctive features of the development of the modern Christmas is the great emphasis placed on family and family gatherings. It is a time when family members try to be together at least for the festive meal on Christmas Day. People will often travel great distances to be with their loved ones for that special day.

In our own Community, the Melkite Church in the Diaspora, I am sure that many would have experienced the joy of having a dear family member visit Australia from overseas to be with them for Christmas. Also, for many of those born in Australia, there will be cherished memories of that first Christmas they spent with relatives abroad, especially in the Middle East.

In a few days, I will experience my first Christmas in Australia. I know that I will look back on this Christmas as a significant event in my becoming an Aussie. Of course, my thoughts will be very much with my family and friends in many parts of the world.

It is a real concern that any "vulnerable” commemoration in the liturgical life of the Church is taken over by certain elements in society and becomes part of the money trail for big business. We have seen Christmas hijacked by big business, and, Easter has become a Christ-less festival, a cash register celebration.

Even comparatively minor observances have proven to be money spinners for the enterprising. The martyrdom of a third century saint gives the florist and chocolate industry a major boost on St Valentine’s Day. The true meaning of All Saints Eve and the following All Souls’ Day is for many lost in the widespread merchandising of Halloween.

Unfortunately, society’s fascination with the Festive Season is frequently limited to the superficial aspects of the celebration. For many of our friends and neighbours, Christmas has become a time of big spending and big debt marked by ever more expensive and elaborate gift-giving.

For us, the People of God, the weeks before Christmas should be an especially graced period. These weeks should be a time of preparation – a time when we prepare our hearts through fasting and approaching the Sacrament of Reconciliation to receive the newborn Lord. This should be also a time during which we prepare our homes to welcome the Saviour as the unseen but truly present guest.

I would encourage every Christian household, every family in our Community, to decorate their homes so that our very houses announce, "Christ is born! Glorify Him!” Let our decorated houses announce the presence of a family devoted to Christ, the Light of the World.

I am the last one to discourage the giving of gifts. But let the cost be appropriate and within reason. The gifts we purchase from the shops should be but symbols of the most precious gift we can give – the gift of our love.

Above all, our Christmas preparations should be well underway. Avoid that last minute rush because it will distract you from the meaning and significance of the Feast. Try to finish your Christmas shopping early so that you are not running from store to store, even on Christmas Eve.

It is good for us to consider the Byzantine icon of the Nativity of our Lord. Around the four sides of the icon there is much activity. In the upper registers, the angels come to the shepherds and appear to them. The shepherds then go quickly to see this wonder. To one side the Magi, the Wise Men, journey from the East, bearing their gifts. In a lower register, Satan, shown as an old man, tempts Joseph. All in all, much movement.

However, at the very centre of the icon all is at rest, all is peaceful. In 1818, the Austrian priest, Father Joseph Mohr, could have chosen no better title for his Christmas hymn than "Silent Night, Holy Night.” In the presence of so great a mystery as the Divine Nativity, it is best to remain in holy and perfect silence.

In the 18^th and 19^th centuries under western influence, Greek iconographers began to show the Theotokos kneeling before her child. This is an unacceptable departure from the artistic tradition of the Byzantine Church. In the correctly written icon of the Nativity, our Lady reclines beside her Child in undisturbed repose. She has given birth to Him without distress, pain or tears, as St Augustine says, "as a ray of sunlight passes through glass.”

At the beginning of this message, I recalled how important the family has become as a symbol of the entire process of Christmas celebrations. Perhaps it is Providential that as the family comes under increasing pressure from secularist forces, even the unbelievers, the half believers and the not so sure, can on this day, acknowledge the centrality of family and its fundamental value for society.

At that first Christmas, the Cave of Bethlehem was a place of divinely determined meetings. Angels met with shepherds, and, wise men met the Wisdom of God. Indeed, as our holy icons show, even the ox and the donkey knew their Master. For a blessed time, the holy Cave was truly the place where heaven and earth were joined.

As Melkite Catholics, we also enjoy membership in a wider family than the natural one into which we were born. At our baptism and chrismation, we were incorporated into the People of God, in a particular Church within the Catholic Communion. Each Christmas should be a time for the renewal and strengthening of the ties which bind the Melkite family together.

My wish list for Christmas is very simple. I could ask for no more precious Christmas gift than to be told that our holy churches were filled with faithful whose hearts became living caves to welcome the newly born Babe.

Christ is Born! Glorify Him!

Robert

Melkite Eparch of Australia and New Zealand