At this time of year “when darkness can fall so deeply in different ways it’s important to recall the brighter moments in life and human experience,” the Catholic primate Cardinal Sean Brady has said.
In his Christmas message he said “hardship, bereavements, natural disasters and failures, can either overwhelm and paralyse us or they can awaken our hope and rally our strength to help one another”.
He continued that “the challenge we now face is to bring encouragement to one another. Just as an individual may spiral down into a state of depression, so too, a community can allow itself to be overwhelmed by negativity.
“Nobody wants to minimise the pain that many are suffering, but having a positive attitude and coming together to support each other, really can help us to get through these difficult times…,” he said
In his Christmas message the Church of Ireland primate Archbishop Alan Harper said “there is more good news: we are down but we are not out! We need to re-establish the values and principles that are surer and more admirable foundations for society than those which seduced us.’’
We “need a new vision of society as one extended family, a single community of persons committed to one another by obligations of love and respect. To love means to give and receive that which can neither be bought nor sold, neither earned nor stolen,” he said
“There is a message that every person in Ireland needs to hear and take to heart this Christmas whether we live in Northern Ireland or the Republic. It is good news in what has been a terrible year for so many: To you is born in the City of David a Saviour, Christ, the Lord,” he said.
The Christmas message is this “God has not and will not write us off,” he said.
The Presbyterian Moderator Rev Dr Norman Hamilton recalled, in his Christmas message, that “there was a man at the time of Jesus’ birth who is almost always overlooked.
“The inn keeper. This good man did what he could for the stranded couple for whom there was no room in the inn. He provided safety and shelter, and probably a good deal of privacy from curious neighbours,” he said.
The inn keeper was “a very timely example of what Jesus spoke about many year later when we told the story of the Good Samaritan. – the one who came to the help of the hapless man mugged as he was going about his business.”
He recalled that “last week the much respected Dame Joan Bakewell (who is the UK’s official voice for older people) said: ‘Scrooge might well be approved of today, caring only for himself and his own interests. He might even have awarded himself a bonus’.”
He continued that: “as a hard Christmas (in several senses) comes and goes, my plea to each and every citizen of this island is simply this: Be a good Samaritan, this Christmas, early 2011, every day next year to someone.
“There is more to living than simply caring for ourselves and our own interests – however important or challenging they may be, “ he said.
The financial institutions and the public bodies that “squandered so much are under obligation to display patience and generosity to those who simply cannot cope,“ the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin John Neill has said.
“To ask for this must involve each and every one of us in a spirit of sharing of burdens. We have been a grasping society even if most people have not seen that much of the apparent wealth of the last decade,“ he said.
“The expectations of past years have had a profound effect on the mindset of so many of us. It is this that is challenged by the message of Christmas,“ he said.
“The reality of Christmas is realised traditionally by the exchange of gifts. For those hurting most, such must go beyond any exchange of gifts. It must be developed in terms of burdens shared, and a deep generosity of heart,’’ he said.
