Church leaders from across Shropshire and beyond today provide festive messages of peace and hope in difficult times as we face up to a cost of living crisis at home and witness conflict in Europe.
The cost of living crisis and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine dominate the thoughts of bishops from across the West Midlands.
The Catholic Bishop of Shrewsbury Right Reverend Mark Davies discusses the “shadows” of Christmas, including the “financial and energy crises, industrial strife and continuing war in Europe”. But he says there is joy and comfort to be found in the love that God has. “The welcome we give, or fail to give, to people who are cold, hungry, struggling with finances today says so much about our own society.
“The weather conditions described in the first verse of Christina Rossetti’s well-known Christmas carol, ‘In the bleak midwinter’ have been a reality for many around our country and, even more so, around our world, over the past weeks. “We also remember that Jesus himself was born in a stable, nearly 100 miles away from his home town and amongst strangers. The Christmas story is one of displacement and challenge as well as the ’greatest story ever told’ of the birth of the Son of God, the hope of the world, come to earth to bless and to save.
“Anthony Flew was a pioneer of modern atheism. At the turn of the millennium he changed his mind, recognising that the evidence he searched for actually exists. He considered the evidence of God was much better than for not. “There are many reasons this might be. I was an atheist myself once. All of us look at the world through particular spectacles which allow us to filter out unwelcome information that doesn’t fit our world view. Some people approach the world through the lenses that science is all you need to explain it, and there’s nothing else.
“A recent national census points to a growing minority who no longer share any religious conviction, while those who declare themselves Christians have become less than half the population. Yet Christmas remains our shared holiday, recalling the foundation on which our national life has been built. The Coronation next year, with prayers and ceremonies going back more than a millennium, will also celebrate this foundation amid the many challenges of our time.
“Over this autumn and winter, in churches, in places belonging to other faiths, in libraries, fire stations and other community buildings, people are being invited to come in from the cold to enter a warm, heated space, where they can meet with one another and enjoy conversation. “And the welcome we give, or fail to give, to people who are cold, hungry, struggling with finances today says so much about our own society.
“At first sight it might seem that there is no connection between the struggles of so many in the present moment and the birth of a child in miraculous circumstances in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago. “Generosity continues to stock the foodbanks on which record numbers of people depend. We all have the opportunity to be part of an unexpectedly joyful Christmas story for some of our most vulnerable fellow citizens, through the donations we make, the time we volunteer, the kindness we spread.”Right Reverend Martin Gorick says people should remember the love of Jesus is real wherever people are.
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