However, the celebration of Christmas in the second year of the ongoing pandemic invites us to look again at the brothers and sisters who surround us.
By
Kompas Editor
·3 minutes read
Kompas
Catholic devotees attend a Christmas eve mass maintaining social distancing to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus, outside the Quiapo church in Manila on December 24, 2020.
For the second time, Christians are celebrating Christmas in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. Anxiety and fear still exist, but we need to be grateful.
We are grateful because thanks to the hard work of the government, the involvement of various private institutions, and the spirit of brotherhood that is characteristic of our nation's life, we are now in a much better situation than some time ago. However, the celebration of Christmas in the second year of the ongoing pandemic invites us to look again at the brothers and sisters who surround us.
We deserve to be grateful because the handling of the pandemic has improved and the situation is also better than last year.
This is the message of the joint Christmas Celebration with the Indonesian Communion of Churches (PGI) and the 2021 Indonesian Council of Bishops (KWI), titled "The Love of Christ Moves the Spirit of Brotherhood". Thankfulness is very clear in the beginning of the message. We deserve to be grateful because the handling of the pandemic has improved and the situation is also better than last year.
However, this expression of gratitude should not allow us to let down our guard because the threat is still there. The celebration of Christmas, of course, still has to be done in a modest way and within the recommended health protocols. The joy of Christmas also requires us to pay attention to those who are less fortunate.
Therefore, apart from being grateful in their message, the PGI and KWI also very clearly invite Christian people to care for others and their surroundings. Christmas 2021 reminds us to love each other with all our hearts in sincere brotherhood through compassion for others.
The current situation has not fully recovered. There are many people around us who are affected. Some of them have lost their jobs, their businesses have closed, poverty has increased, their families have been destroyed, and of course anxiety and sadness have surrounded many people. This is where Christians are invited to care more for them.
AFP/JOAO PAULO GUIMARAES
In this file photo taken on December 01, 2021 Gabriel Silva holds a Christmas decoration he found while scavenging through garbage at the Picarreira landfill of the Cidade das Aguas neighborhood, in Pinheiro, Maranhao state, Brazil, on November 08, 2021. - An illegal garbage dump seems an unlikely setting for a holiday story, but when a photojournalist captured 12-year-old Gabriel Silva pulling a Christmas tree from a fetid mountain of trash, the image quickly went viral.
This Christmas is also an invitation for all Christian people to continue to find solutions in the midst of various problems. Returning to the message of the PGI and KWI, Jesus Christ, whose birth is being celebrated, encourages us to seek new creative ways to love one another, dispense justice and bring about true peace.
The creative way is emphasized by the PGI and KWI. Therefore, we, from all walks of life, are called upon to also find those bright paths toward improvement and the mitigation of the pandemic. We too are among those who are struggling. Merry Christmas.
