December 2015
Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ:
This year it will be impossible for me to celebrate Christmas without thinking of the suffering of refugees and migrants who are trying to flee the murderous insanity that is gripping their homelands. I was moved by this portion of a poem by the wonderful Somali poet Warsan Shire. I found it online among the thousands of peoples' responses to the terror attacks in Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey and France.
Later that night
I held an atlas in my lap
ran my fingers across the whole world
and whispered
where does it hurt?
It answered
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere
That is what brought God the Son to wrap himself in human nature. Seeing the suffering of the whole world it was his desire to share our burden and by sharing alleviate it. Look around. Warsan is right. It hurts everywhere.
And we are called to emulate him. Now it is we who are being called to wrap ourselves in the suffering of others, like he did, in order to do all we can to bring hope where there is despair. That is if we are Christians or at least people of goodwill.
"Where there is charity and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance." St. Francis of Assisi
With love, +Fr. Antony