December 3, 2009

Dear Sir,

I wish to express my disappointment with the increasing secularisation of Christmas and the lack of public nativity scenes. At Christmas we pause to contemplate the nativity in the crib. There we find the Virgin Mother offering the baby Jesus – the One who stripped himself of divine glory in order to become poor, driven by love for mankind.

The beautiful initiative of the nativity is meant to reawaken in all Christians the desires to witness to the values of life, love and peace of which the solemnity of Christ's birth reminds us. Commemorating the crib means passing on the history of popular piety and religiosity It means rediscovering joy and the solidarity of friendship which we must preserve in contemporary society, where the consumeristic rush and the search for material goods alone sometimes seem to prevail.

Christmas is a Christian feast and its symbol, the crib, hand down in time the true meaning of Christmas! The Creator of the universe, in making himself a Child, came among us to share in our human journey; he made himself little to enter the human heart and thereby to renew it with the almightiness of his love. Let us therefore prepare to welcome him with faith, enlivened by firm hope. In advancement of faith, family and fraternity may we all strive to keep Christ in Christmas! With respectful and cordial best wishes I remain,

PAUL KOKOSKI

Hamilton, Ontario

December 11, 2009

Dear Sir,

I have enclosed the following letter for publication. Please let me know if you intend on printing it. I sincerely hope for a favourable response. Thank you.

A short time ago we began the Advent season that leads to Christmas. Christmas is a season of universal festivity. Even non-believers perceive something extraordinary and transcendental about the Christmas season.

However, under the drive of a hedonist consumerism, Christmas runs the risk of losing its spiritual meaning, reduced to a mere commercial occasion to buy and exchange gifts. The world's current economic difficulties might serve as a stimulus for rediscovering the warmth of the simplicity, friendship, and solidarity that are the typical values of Christmas.

As we turn our eyes toward the infant Jesus in the manger, all peoples should be grateful for that gift of love and be ready to welcome it everywhere, and that welcome should take the form of caring for those in need.

Indeed, the almighty God reveals Himself to us as a poor infant in order to conquer our pride. In the Baby Jesus we see the defencelessness of God's love: God comes to us unarmed, because he does not intend to conquer externally, but rather to win us over and transform us internally – to lead us to our true selves.

The cave stall, where the Baby lay, was not inhabited by refined persons. Are we very far from that stall precisely because we are too refined and intelligent? Don't we perhaps live too much closed in on ourselves, in our self-sufficiency, our fear of persecution, such that we are no longer able to perceive in the night the voices of angels so that we may join them in adoring Him?

When we place the figurines in our Christmas crèche, we should pray to God to grant to our hearts that simplicity that recognises the Lord in the Baby.

PAUL KOKOSKI

Hamilton, Ontario