ADVENT/CHRISTMAS/EPIPHANY 2005
From the editor…
The Light Shines in the Darkness
I believe the hardest job
in America
today is that of being a Roman Catholic parish
priest.
Perhaps the most
challenging single job this year is that of Archbishop Alfred C. Hughes
of New Orleans in the
aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The spiritual leader of 500,000
people in one
of the most heavily Roman Catholic regions in the United
States, Hughes, according to the New
York Times, had to
put together a diocese "in exile." The task was to reorganize the
Archdiocese,
including a charitable network and 104 parochial schools, in Baton
Rouge. Can you
imagine?
"I never thought the Lord
was going to ask me to take this on at 72," said the Archbishop.
Indeed.
And here is where faith
in the child in the manger comes in.
Looking out at all the flooding, devastation, looting and loss, the
reporter asked Alfred Hughes whether he still had hope.
He declared: "Absolutely. Absolutely.
That is the root of our faith."
"The most important thing
is to not doubt God's presence and God's saving and transforming
grace," he
continued. "I'm convinced that God is
going to purify us through this."
What a bracing affirmation
in the midst of so many who are tempted to soften Christmas into a
Hallmark
Card these days. "In the bleak
midwinter," Christine Rosetti reminds us, "frosty wind made moan, earth
stood
hard as iron, water like a stone."
Talk about bleak — how about
New Orleans after
Katrina?
Yet the good Archbishop says "I am convinced." If there can be
light in the bleakness of Bethlehem,
in the miry initial despair of New Orleans
after such a fury of nature, there can ALWAYS be
hope. For the light shines in the
darkness at Christmas, and the darkness has not and never will overcome
it.
The Rev. Canon Dr. Kendall S. Harmon
Contact Dr. Harmon by e-mail at ksharmon@mindspring.com
Return
to TAD menu