1. Christmas this year is a special one since it is the 2000th anniversary
of the birth of Our Lord and God Jesus Christ, in our land in Bethlehem,
where he gave us the grace to know him, to adore him and to love him, and
where He gave us the commandment to love each other as He loved us. We
give praise to God for this gift and for the mystery of the Incarnation
of His Eternal Word, as says St. John in the prologue of his Gospel: “In
the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God and the Word was God…The
Word became flesh: he lived among us” (Jn 1,1.14). Made man similar to
us, He took upon himself our weaknesses and our sins and reconciled us
with Himself and with our brothers and sisters. To all of us He brought
peace, though until today peace remains a wish as yet to be fulfilled.
2. In our Holy Land, peace is still a difficult process. In these
recent days it has extended to include all parties concerned. Peace will
be the fruit of justice. In our context, it should restore to the refugees
their dignity and their rights, to the political prisoners their liberty,
and to Jerusalem it should guarantee its sacred character. Peace with the
Palestinian people remains at the heart of the problem and the essential
condition for peace in the whole region.
The year of the Jubilee, as we put ourselves before the mystery of God
who became our companion and is the Lord of our history, reminds us that
peace is possible, and that we have the duty to pursue and fulfil it.
3. As we celebrate the Great Jubilee, we see with pain that the centers
of the Jubilee in our land, Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nazareth, are deprived
from peace. Jerusalem remains the center of the conflict. Bethlehem still
suffers form instability and diverse limitations to freedom and Nazareth
became in these days the heart of a problem which has torn the secular
fraternity between its inhabitants, Moslems and Christians alike and has
even had worldwide repercussions. We believe firmly however that God in
his goodness is greater and stronger than everything: He will re-establish
His peace in our cities and in our hearts.
4. Jerusalem is the city of God; its peace comes from the peace of God.
Its rulers should become disciples of God to be taught by Him how to practise
justice and equality with all its inhabitants. The key of any solution
for the future of Jerusalem is sharing and equality in sovereignty as well
as in duties and rights. All believers, Jews, Moslems and Christians alike,
should speak and be listened to when the time comes to decide the future
of this city.
Bethlehem will reach its stability in an independent Palestinian
State enjoying its own sovereignty and full freedom. Its inhabitants as
in all of Palestine will then know an era of peace, security and tranquillity.
We hope this will be achieved in the new year.
As for the question of Nazareth, it should be taken together by Moslems
and Christians, with one vision and one heart, helped in that by those
responsible of the public order in Nazareth. So all houses of God, churches
and mosques, will become houses of prayer, love and fraternity which should
be born again in the hearts of all, Christians and Moslems. We appreciate
the position and the solution proposed by Arab and Moslem countries, as
well as by many Moslem personalities. We sincerely wish that nobody will
feel defeated in the final outcome to this question. We sincerely wish
that all parties will feel winners by a restoring of fraternity among all,
Moslems and Christians. We are sure that all together we are able to achieve
this wish.
5. At the occasion of the Great Jubilee, the Holy Father, Pope John
Paul II, will make his spiritual pilgrimage to the Holy Land. It will be
a visit of faith and prayer. All the Heads of the Catholic Churches wanted
this visit. They hope it will be a blessing for all, a voice of the Spirit
in our country, a message of peace to our peoples in quest of peace, a
strengthening of the faith of our Churches, and an encounter with all believers
in God in this land of God.
6. Our message to all our governments, to the faithful and citizens,
Christians, Moslems and Jews, in all the parts of our diocese, Israel,
Palestine, Jordan, and Cyprus, is a message of peace and hope founded on
the presence of God among us, in the mystery of His Incarnation and Nativity.
Our message to all the Arab world, Christian and Moslem, is a message of
love and fraternity, which we hope will grow and become stronger, with
the starting new century, thanks to the new orientations and new programs
within our religious education. To the Jewish people our message is a message
of peace which is the fruit of justice and which will produce for us all
tranquillity and joy.
Our message from Bethlehem to the world is the message of the Spirit
and of the presence of God among us: God accompanies us in the history
which we make day after day. May the world, in his efforts to create a
new world order, welcome the Spirit of God: only the Spirit will renew
the face of the earth, the heart of humanity and restore justice in relations
among peoples and persons. In this way, diverse religious extremisms manifested
by so many believers will disappear, and every one will finally see that
to believe in God is to love God and all the creatures of God.
We ask God to bestow upon us the grace to listen to Him and to see
Him, in all our actions and in all our brothers and sisters.
Happy Christmas and Holy New Year 2000.
+Michel Sabbah, Patriarch
Jerusalem, 22 December
1999
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