Gelegen? Ungelegen? - Gelegen!

Der Kardinal-Erzbischof von Westminster, Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, nimmt keine Rücksicht auf die Saison - oder doch? Im Spectator gibt es eine leibhaftige Höllenpredigt:

"Christmas may not appear at first sight to be the best time to be speaking about such things. But if I am to be judged by God, I am happy that I should be judged by One who came among us and lived our life just as it is — short, bitter, mysterious, and yet wonderful. It is as the Son of Man that God will examine us about our life. He has lived our life with sympathetic understanding of its fragility and unsolved enigmas. He did not merely enter into it by virtue of Divine understanding but by living it for real. He himself became flesh. Which is why every human face is, in a mysterious and powerful sense, the human face of God Himself: the pure face of the child, the faces of the poor, the tear-stained faces of sinners, even the embittered faces, those who are enemies and hate us.

Jesus came amongst us as Saviour and, God help us, we do need to be saved — from our selfishness, and our sin, and our poverty. Christmas is an occasion to ponder more deeply the consequences of our choices and actions while giving thanks for that most wondrous event in human history — the coming of Emmanuel: God with us."