Abbot Brendan OSB
The angels sing of peace this night, but we have no peace. Our world is sick with war and everywhere we turn, we see its ugly face. If we don’t find goodwill in this world, we will destroy ourselves by the misuse of our own power. Everyone who takes up the sword will perish by the sword. Without hope we would have nothing.
So where did we find hope? Not in Athens, the intellectual centre of the world; not in illustrious Rome, the political centre of the world; but in Bethlehem, called by some ‘a weed patch ignored by world travellers’. Hope came first to the shepherds, poor honest people, not leaders of armies, not expounders of philosophies, not advocates of political theories, just throwers of stones to keep the wolves away. Watchers of their flocks.
When Jesus came, it was night in Egypt, night in Rome, night in Athens, night in Syria, night in Palestine, night everywhere. As Milton says O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon, Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse. Without all hope of day! The birth of Christ brought us light and hope and this hope reappears in the darkest moments of history like the star of Bethlehem in the darkened sky.
In December 1942, during the Battle for Stalingrad, (the deadliest conflict of history with almost two million casualties) a pastor and doctor with the German army, Lieutenant Kurt Reuber, drew a charcoal picture of Mary and the infant Jesus. The Stalingrad Madonna is a barefoot woman wrapped in a large shawl, holding the infant Jesus close to her cheek. On the right border are the words Light, Life, Love, from the Gospel of St John. On the left, “Christmas in the Cauldron 1942”. This is the true image for our 2022 Christmas Card. The charcoal Madonna was flown out of Stalingrad on the last transport plane to leave the encircled German 6th Army and has become a global symbol of peace. It hangs today in a Berlin church with copies in Stalingrad and Coventry Cathedral. Many have found peace by contemplating this image. Reuber himself died in a Soviet prisoner of war camp in 1944.
The angels still sing of peace and the shepherds still rejoice at this news. Not everyone, however, embraces this message. There are many like Herod who prefer the way of violence. The question of St Peter Chrysologus haunts us tonight, ‘Why then, are you so worthless in your own eyes and yet so precious to God?’
God points us to humility on entering our world, because this is the answer to our human dilemma. In Bethlehem, humility and glory in their extremes were joined. Born in a stable. Cradled in a cattle trough. Wrapped in swaddling clothes of poverty. No room for him who made all rooms! No place for him who made all places! His descent became the dawn of mercy. Because we cannot ascend to him, he descends to us.
If we really want to change the world, make it a better place, bring peace, justice, knowledge and love of God, then we have to change human hearts. This can never happen by force, but by example. The Gospel of the Nativity and the Madonna of Stalingrad witnesses to this and reveal “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”