From Lambeth Palace:
'Then Herod sent the wise men to Bethlehem saying,
Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him,
bring me word so I may also go and pay him homage.’ (Matthew 2.8)
Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him,
bring me word so I may also go and pay him homage.’ (Matthew 2.8)
The
deceit and cruelty of governments and rulers has not changed in the 2000
years since King Herod. 2014 has been a year of desperate suffering for
many Christians, unparalleled for centuries. Christian communities have
been uprooted from the places that they have dwelt since within living
memory of the time of Jesus. Along with them, others have been harried
and hunted, blown up, tortured, beheaded, raped and have seen their
families, their livelihoods, their futures destroyed. Indeed, the cry of
the martyrs rises across the earth, ‘How long, oh Lord, how long?’
At
the same time we have seen the scourge of Ebola sweep across three
countries of West Africa, striking people down above all when they
exhibit their deep compassion for the human dignity of others through
touching and holding them, or through washing their bodies after death.
The acts of love have become the means of infection and death.
In other places, immense economic poverty continues to spoil the
lives and diminish the dignity of human beings. In Europe, migration
across the Mediterranean has reached extraordinary levels, and the
countries of Europe have ceased to see the common good as obliging them
to support each other in loving and receiving those who have fled
through such horrors, such dangers, and such privations. Rightly, Pope
Francis has said that the Mediterranean must not become a vast cemetery.
Individualism and selfishness is causing countries to withdraw into
themselves and look only after their own interests.
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