From the editor’s desk

When hope entered the world

Christmas' growing commercialisation could be likened to the demolition of Westminster Abbey to be replaced by a car park. No doubt that prime piece of land could make someone a fortune. But no one would seriously suggest that it should be done. The abandonment of the spiritual dimension of Christmas, leaving only pleasure and profit as the point of the midwinter festivities, would leave an even greater hole in the social and moral landscape. It would signify the abandonment of hope. A state of total despair would be hell itself. To escape that fate, there needs to be an ultimate point to life, a transcendent purpose that makes human existence worthwhile. That optimism is at the heart of the meaning of Christmas.

It signifies above all that humanity cannot rely on itself alone. All purely human schemes to build paradise on earth are bound to fail, as the history of the twentieth century painfully demonstrates. The transformation of human history required an act of salvation and it came in the birth of a child who was also the son of God. It was a supreme act of God's mercy, kindling a hope that would be impossible without him. The angelic proclamation of peace and goodwill was a proclamation of hope. And the road to peace, as Pope John XXIII vividly stated, runs through justice, which is goodwill in action. Without hope, indeed, what is the point of justice?

These are the social implications of the Christmas message, and any nation that forgets them is heading for catastrophe. They are not remembered necessarily in the language of Christian doctrine, but in a vague belief in something else, something "more than this". Even for those unaware of the meaning of the Incarnation, the birth of a child provides a clue. It is an occasion for giving gifts as a mark of celebration and congratulation. Working back from the traditional exchange of gifts at Christmas - the very factor that drives its commercialisation - clearly there must be a birth being celebrated that is itself of universal significance.

It is also of individual significance. Humanity's salvation from hopelessness by Christ is also a personal salvation, unique to each who receives it. As the recently published papal encyclical Spe Salvi puts it: "The Gospel is not merely a communication of things that can be known - it is one that makes things happen and is life-changing. The dark door of time, of the future, has been thrown open. The one who has hope lives differently; the one who hopes has been granted the gift of a new life."

There are those who fully share in the hope of Christ. There are those whose connection to it is as tenuous as rumour, who may have heard it and lost it. There are those for whom it exists as an intuition hidden beneath the veil of another belief. There are those for whom it is a problem not yet solved, a twitch upon the thread not yet responded to. And there are those who have turned their face away, scoffing at the very possibility. Yet Christ was born to save all, to offer the real hope that gives meaning and purpose. Indeed, where hope is, Christ is. We wish all our readers a merry, hopeful, Christ-filled Christmas.