Page 3 - LOTN Autumn Issue 54 2023

DIOCESE

A Letter from Bishop Hugh Gilbert O.S.B.

Dear Friends in Christ,

Christmas is coming, and there seem to be so many of them. Christmas means so many
different things and, for some, nothing at all. There is a whole spectrum. There is a retail
Christmas, always very evident, which seems to begin once Halloween is over – certainly
well before Advent. It’s the Christmas of shopping, luring us in. Relentless entertainment
is another version or just plain over-indulgence. Then we might think of the Christmas
of those who are ill, in hospital perhaps, or in care homes. How a simple piece of bad
news can crash our Christmas! Or, given current events, what will Christmas be like for
Christians and non-Christians in Gaza? What will it be like for hostages and prisoners?
Or for soldiers on frontlines in Ukraine and elsewhere? And so on. Are there as many
Christmasses as people?
And what might a Christian Christmas be? Family and friends, please God, the flowing
bowl and the full plate, and the joys of being together round a table. The Christmas of
carols and gifts and children enchanted. The Christmas of our liturgies, drawing us in to
the Gospel story: the Christmas of Mary and Joseph, shepherds and wise men, under
the gaze of angels and a star: the gift of the Father wrapped up as a Child in a manger.
The long waiting of prophecy fulfilled. This is the Christmas of faith and hope, of new
beginnings, an inoculation of courage against the disease of despair.
There is another strand in our tradition too. It echoes in the old familiars like Good King
Wenceslas and Dickens’ story of Scrooge. It is the Christmas of charity. It will be dear to
the heart of Pope Francis. The Christmas of mercy, and its corporal and spiritual works.
Of hospitality. Of aid. Of outreach. Of simple kindness. The light of love in darkness. We
are blessed as Catholics to have SCIAF, the Scottish arm of Caritas Internationalis; Mary’s
Meals; and in many parishes the Society of St Vincent de Paul and in and around our
Cathedral the work for the homeless of the Holy Family Sisters of the Needy – not to
mention so many worthy charities and initiatives, Christian and otherwise.
God’s Christmas, we might venture, was the opening of his heart. It wasn’t just Mary
who gave birth at Christmas. It was, grounding that, God the Father himself. And we
are re-born when our heart opens. Merciful action to our neighbour is a sign we are
becoming children of our heavenly Father. The best sign, indeed, of a “good Christmas”.
I wish it to us all.

Yours in Christ,

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