Radical Christmas

international | anti-war / imperialism | press release Tuesday December 23, 2008 03:03 by Ciaron - Catholic Worker/Ploughshares

For radical Christians the celebration of Christmas is informed by the Feast of the Holy Innocents that soon follows on Dec 28th. The season has become one of celebration, solidarity and nonviolent resistance to the contemporary slaughter of the innocents in Iraq, Afghanistan etc

..........as Liz McAlister of Jonah House www.jonahhouse.org reflects......

"Each year it grows more difficult to make sense out of the onslaught of yuletide opportunism. One must search earnestly for the Hope of Advent amid the cacaphony of a society transfixed by its own hopelessness. The Church is rarely helpful, prey of an uncontroversial understanding of the Incarnation. To a discerning mind, in touch with the agonizing realities of the age, cognizant of the bomb's lordship over culture and society, the contradictions of the Christmas season are almost too great to bear.

Biblical people need to constantly re-read and understand the Advent story in light of present realities - to lose hold of it is to miss its hope. I submit that the Advent accounts in Biblical literature are full of insight not only into salvation-history but into the politics of our own history as well. The story of the Christ child is only half a story - a gross mis-representation of our hope. A full reading confronts us with not only the joy and promise of Advent, but its cost and its redemptive agony.

From friends at Jonah House I first learned that the two liturgical events on the Church's calendar, Christmas (December 25) and the Feast of the Holy Innocents (December 28) are profoundly connected - a unity. Biblically this is to be encountered in the Gospel of Matthew and his deployment of prophecies from both Micah (5: 1-3) and Jeremiah (31: 15,16) in his advent account (Mt 2:6,18). The message of the Gospel is manifest: the connection between Bethlehem and Ramah is essential, the cost and the hope of the Incarnation are one."
Liz McAlister
Jonahh House
Harrisburg Conspiracy Defendant
Griffis Ploughshares

Here some efforts going down over the next week to reengage with the season in our times...........

*Link to Open Door CW (Gerogia U.S.A) Advent Conspiracy Vid (3 mins)
http://followingthetracks.blogspot.com/2008/12/open-doo....html

*Feast of Holy Innocents Retreat Washingotn D.C. USA
http://www.jonahhouse.org/FRDec08index.htm

*Feast of Holy Innocents at Stratcom, Omaha, USA
An online invitation to the Feast of the Holy Innocents Retreat may be read at:
http://www.desmoinescatholicworker.org/feastofholyinnoc....html