"Hope Is Our Only Treasure Now"

The British newspaper The Telegraph called attention this week to the surgical revisionism that has been taking place under the initiative of clergy determined to strike a more "inclusive" note through the songs sung in their church services during the Christmas season.

No more "king", "man", "son", "virgin"... and "Lord". God Rest Ye, Merry Gentle-folk, let no old lyrics bring dismay:

Enduring favourites such as Hark the Herald Angels Sing and God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen are being altered by clergy to make them more "modern and inclusive".
But churchgoers say there is no need to change the popular carols and complain that the result is a "festive car crash" if not everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet. It comes just a day after a Church of England vicar banned his congregation from singing O Little Town of Bethlehem because he believed its words do not reflect the suffering endured by modern residents of Jesus's birthplace. Another clergyman has rewritten the Twelve Days of Christmas to include Aids victims, drug addicts and hoodies.

The report relies heavily on the anecdotes accumulating at the Ship Of Fools website, where readers from around the world have been filling a forum thread with their experiences singing the new and improved carols:

"At our church, the people who really refused to sing these Abominations Unto the Lord were the younger ones. We felt insulted by the insinuation that old-fashioned words were too hard for us to understand. The over 70s sang the 'real' words as well – from memory. Meanwhile the 40 to 50-year-olds in the middle bravely soldiered on from some warped sense of duty and would have preferred to be singing the old words, too."...

"Nowadays there is a printed bulletin with the traditional words... A magnificent victory for people power."

So far, however, there isn't much to read in the Telegraph about the other ongoing War on Christmas, the one being fought, not with words, but with knives guns and bombs, where more than memories are being consumed in the flames of Orissa, India. I can't bring myself to post the photo of the disfigured young girl who may have almost lost her face but never her faith in the wake of an inferno of anti-Christian hatred:

Namrata Nayak is a 10-year-old Dalit from the village of Sahi Panchayat, near Raikia (district of Kandhamal, Orissa). Three months ago, at the outbreak of violence against the Christians, the little girl's face was disfigured by a bomb thrown by Hindu extremists. After 45 days in the hospital, she has healed, and is happy.
...
The little girl was disfigured on August 26. When she arrived in the hospital of Berahampur, she had lesions on 40% of her body. Now she is practically healed. "For me," Namrita tells AsiaNews, "Christmas is a time to thank the Baby Jesus who saved me from the fire and saved my face, which was disfigured and wounded. I am one of the few fortunate ones who escaped death, although I had to spend a long time in the hospital. I feel very loved by the people of India, and by so many people in the world who have seen my photo and have prayed for me.

"In Kandhamal, there is so much pain and suffering, and I don't know how long the special forces will protect us. But Christmas is a time of gratitude. I am afraid that my people will still be attacked, but this is our life. If God has saved me, he can save other Christians too."
...
"Christmas is also a time of forgiveness," says Namrata, "and we forgive the Hindu radicals who attacked us, who burned our homes. They were out of their minds, they do not know the love of Jesus. For this reason, I now want to study so that when I am older I can tell everyone how much Jesus loves us. This is my future. The world has seen my face destroyed by the fire, now it must come to know my smile full of love and peace. I want to dedicate my life to spreading the Gospel."
...
On the night of August 26, the Hindu radicals entered the house, breaking down the door and destroying and burning everything. The family of Harihar Das and Namrata and her sisters hid in a little bathroom. Before they left, the Hindu fanatics left a bomb in a dresser. After the attackers had gone, the occupants came out of the house, but little Namrata was curious and stayed behind to look at the damage. The bomb exploded, burning her face, while some of the shrapnel wounded her face, hands, and back.
...

Namrata's mother shows where her daughter seems to get her strength of character:

"My hope," she tells AsiaNews, "is that we can still have a future in Raikia. We possess nothing, and we could still leave, but in Sahi Panchayat we have some relatives, and our neighbors. If we leave, we will be wanderers.

"Christmas brings hope, hope is our only treasure now: we were poor, and now even the little we had has been destroyed. But Christmas means that Christ is born, and every birth means a new life. Jesus came down from heaven to save us from this misery, from the pain, from abandonment, from our homelessness. His power fills us with hope, love, and forgiveness."

With apologies to the sensitive ears of politically correct British clerics, I think we need a strong dose of the original lyrics to these old Carols this Christmas more than ever:

Hark the herald angels sing
"Glory to the newborn King!
Peace on earth and mercy mild
God and sinners reconciled"
Joyful, all ye nations rise
Join the triumph of the skies
With the angelic host proclaim:
"Christ is born in Bethlehem"
Hark! The herald angels sing
"Glory to the newborn King!"

Christ by highest heav'n adored
Christ the everlasting Lord!
Late in time behold Him come
Offspring of a Virgin's womb
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see
Hail the incarnate Deity
Pleased as man with man to dwell
Jesus, our Emmanuel
Hark! The herald angels sing
"Glory to the newborn King!"

Hail the heav'n-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Son of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings
Ris'n with healing in His wings
Mild He lays His glory by
Born that man no more may die
Born to raise the sons of earth
Born to give them second birth
Hark! The herald angels sing
"Glory to the newborn King!"

[Written by Charles Wesley, brother of John Wesley, founder of the Methodist church, in 1739.]

The Other War On Christmas

With apologies to Bill O'Reilly and John Gibson, I wish that some of the energy devoted to the annual focus on retailers wishing us "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas", as well as the attention given to accounts of Nativity scenes being replaced with Frosty the Snowman in public spaces, could instead be re-directed towards the violent and far more fearsome wars on Christmas taking place around our world at this time every year.

For instance, it looks like there's another bloody Christmas in the works for the besieged Christians in the north-east state of Orissa, India. From Compass Direct News:

Christians in Orissa state are anticipating Christmas with fear as Hindu extremists have called for a state-wide bandh, or forced shut-down on all sectors of society, on Dec. 25 – a move that could provide Hindu extremists the pretext for attacking anyone publicly celebrating the birth of Christ.

The state’s chief minister has said there should be no such shut-down but stopped short of prohibiting the Hindu extremists’ plan, and the Hindu extremist umbrella organization Sangh Parivar has vowed to press ahead with it, reported newspaper Outlook India on Nov. 20.

... Ratnakar Chaini, president of SLSSS [Laxmanananda Saraswati Condolence Society], called for the shut-down in a massive rally in Delhi on Nov. 15. Inflammatory speeches at the rally by Chaini and others led Christians to believe the shut-down would serve as the pretext for another spate of violence against those publicly celebrating Christmas. At the same time, in Orissa’s Kandhamal district, more deaths of Christians have been reported in the past two weeks.

Many tens of thousands of Orissa's Christians will be spending Christmas away from their homes, seeking refuge in the squalor of emergency relief camps set up by the state government as a result of the violence waged in as many as 300 villages, seeing 4,000 houses and 157 churches burned down since August 2008.

The Times of India recently tried to call attention to one especially heartbreaking consequence of the hard life the Christian refugees must deal with in these relief camps: unsafe deliveries for pregnant women.

...
Stranded without access to doctors, hospitals or medical kits, most women are delivering in relief camps with the help of fellow refugees and — if they are fortunate — some anganwadi workers.

But not all have been lucky to be able to give birth. "There have been 10 miscarriages in the past week," said Jyotirmoy Naik in Cuttack. "Nirmala Digal, Mita Digal, Ranju Naik, Padmini Naik, Mithila Naik — all miscarried because there's no help for expecting women at the camps."
...
Rev Prakash Naik, who's active in the Raikia camps, said even if women do manage to give birth, the conditions in the relief shelters are so bad that mortality is a big fear. "Just look around Vijaya school camp and you'll see what I mean. Survival is a huge factor. Water has gathered in dirty, mosquito-infested puddles and people are defecating in the open."

Many other miscarriages took place as Christians fled to the jungles and stayed there for days with attacks against them showing no signs of abating. "Pregnant women suffered as they hid in the forests. While lack of food hindered healthy deliveries for the emaciated, others slipped and fell while running for their lives," said Krishna Kanta Naik, a social worker in Baliguda. "Nine women have delivered at the camps in the past week, but the children are very unhealthy."

We've got it sinfully easy if our personal experiences of "persecution" involve debates over whether to listen to "Oh Little Town Of Bethlehem" or Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer at office parties, or if someone should or should not wish us a Merry Christmas when we shop at their store. For too many, Christmas will bring an entirely different perspective to the idea of a Silent Night:

Silent night, holy night
All is calm, all is bright
Round yon Virgin
Mother and Child
Holy Infant so tender and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace
Sleep in heavenly peace

The Persecution Report (December 2008)
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"My Hands Are Trembling..."

The violence against Christians in the Indian state of Orissa grows in intensity; now the mobs have taken to attacking the police who try to shield Christians from further assault, burning police headquarters inbetween their torching of churches.


The police and state authorities seem completely incapable of maintaining any kind of order in that region. Yet, lawlessness is not an isolated occurence in India these days.


This week Noida [the "New Okhla Industrial Development Area"] saw a shocking story of absolute anarchy, right in the shadow of the nation's capital city of Delhi: an overwhelmed police force did little to contain an enraged mob of 200 former factory workers as they launched an attack on the plant that had employed them:

According to Graziano employees, the sacked workers rushed into the premises around 12:20 pm when the gates were opened to let in a car. "They smashed each one of the approximately 20 cars inside the compound. Hearing the commotion, our CEO, Lalit Kishore Chaudhary, came out to the building entrance. He was abused while trying to reason with the protesters. And, when he objected, they beat him to death with a hammer," said production supervisor, Udaivir.

... The violence left at least 50 executives and workers of the unit injured. Of the 44 staffers taken to hospital, 34 of them were yet to be discharged until Monday night. Of these, 10 executives of the company remained in the intensive care unit.
...
The unit also sustained heavy damage in the vandalism that followed. Five Italian technical consultants, who were visiting the unit, barely managed to escape injuries. Some of them had to plead with the raiders to spare them.
...
Shockingly, despite several Graziano officials phoning up a number of Noida police officials about the violence, only two police constables arrived at the spot after an hour. And, even at 3:30 pm, as the unit's security personnel and some other employees shut themselves up in the unit, only about half a dozen Provincial Armed Constabulary personnel were posted outside. And, there was no officer with them. Which meant that, in case of an emergency, there was nobody there to order any action. And, this was the state of affairs with the district reserve police lines being located half a kilometre away.
...
The bloodstained hammer, which was allegedly used to kill Chaudhary, was found lying in the premises, and had surprisingly not been seized by the police as evidence.
...
In the company guesthouse, visiting Italian technical consultant, Forettii Gatii, told TOI , "I just locked my room's door from inside. And I prayed they would not break in. See, my hands are trembling even three hours later."

Excruciating Suffering

Four Franciscan monks were savagely attacked by feral thugs invading their San Columbano Belmonte monastery near Turin, Italy, last week.

Three of the monks, aged 86, 81, and 76, were tied and gagged, then punched, kicked and beaten with clubs. Another, 48 year-old Father Sergio Baldin, suffered head injuries that left him in a coma, as well as "serious respiratory problems" resulting from having choked on the food he had been eating when the assault began. He heroically put himself in the way of the rabid fury that had been directed at his older Brothers, according to one of the other monks:

"Father Sergio (Baldin) came to my aid. He put himself in front of me to try and defend me, but he too was knocked down without mercy. They hit him until he stopped crying out. Then they beat Father Salvatore and Father Martin as well. It was terrible."

In the Indian state of Orissa, violence against Christians has reached frightful proportions. Earlier last week a mission in Orissa was torched by a bloodthirsty mob of 700 maniacs:

The mob chanting anti-Christian slogans when reached Padampur in Bargarh district, attacked the orphanage where Fr Edward lived. Ms Rajni, a 20 year old student who lived in the orphanage and was also working as an auxiliary nurse in the orphanage confronted them. When Fr Sequeira arrived at the spot the mob locked him and Rajni into separate rooms, and ordered the children to vacate the orphanage. The mob then ransacked Fr Sequeira's room, poured petrol on him, Rajni and set the orphanage on fire. "I was engulfed in flames, I could hear the cries of Rajni and the mob was cheering and shouting through the windows," recalls Fr Sequeira.

"When I started to suffocate I found a crack on the wall that was damaged in the attack and kept my nose there to breath some air. All the while I could hear the cries of Rajni from the next room where she was writhing in agony. After sometime, there was silence and I thought she must have managed to escape from the room," recalled Fr Sequeira. Unknown to Fr Edward, the girl was burnt alive and had breathed her last.
People from the neighborhood who heard the cries of children rushed to the rescue, broke the walls and brought him to safety. That is when the mob attacked him again outside the orphanage and was beaten up mercilessly till he became unconscious.

The Catholic Bishops' Conference of India has issued a list of several dozen Christian (Protestant and Catholic) churches, convents, hostels, as well as the hundreds of houses and other buildings burned during the spiralling wave of barbaric anti-Christian attacks. Over 25,000 Catholic schools in India have shut their doors in protest of "...the incapacity of the central government to stop violence at a time when anti-Christian sentiment is growing and the faithful are tortured and killed," said CBCI Chairman Osvaldo Cardinal Gracias.

The CBCI listed several deaths from the anti-christian violence so far, but another Indian Christian group, the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), claims that the death toll is much higher:

"We have received authentic information that the death toll is 100", says Dr Sajan George, national president of the GCIC, "and more butchered bodies and burnt corpes are being found". The Christian activist is also calling for the resignation of the entire government of Orissa, which is incapable of stopping the massacres against the Christian community. He provides an example: "In Bakingia, two families of seven Christians - Daniel Naik and Michael Naik and their families - were tortured and killed, their bodies were found with their heads pulped and smashed, they were recognised by their clothes. Bakingia is about 8 kilometers from Raikia police station".

This past week I received the monthly prayer focus from The Barnabus Fund, from where I first encountered the news of the persecutions in Orissa; their official site doesn't seem to have incorporated these latest updates yet, so I will quote directly from their e-mail, concerning yet another wave of brutality, in Angola, Africa:

Muslim extremists recently attacked the Christian community in the town of Andulo. In an horrific incident, the school-age daughter of a deacon at one of the churches was decapitated. Forty believers were assaulted or tortured, and one of them needed 20 stitches in his head. The mob burned three church buildings. They also went to believers’ houses to intimidate them and damaged or destroyed items of property. ...

When pain and torment grows unbearable, we say the agony is "excruciating". The root of that word makes it fitting to use as a description of the horrors endured by those like Father Sequeira; excruciating comes from the latin, excruciatus, past participle of excruciare, from ex- + cruciare to crucify, from cruc-, crux cross.

"The pain from the crucified one".

In the face of the rising tide of such suffering, it is hard to feel any hope for the future. How to keep faith when the world seems filled with evil triumphant over good? Fr. Edward Sequeira had devoted 25 years of his life as a missionary in India, and was managing a leper colony as well as an orphanage when he was beset upon by the crazed mob that tried to burn him to death for his good deeds. As hard as it is to contemplate the pain his scarred physical body will bear from the building's flames, it is harder still to imagine the searing damage done to the soul within. As he told his brother, upon awakening in the hospital:

"...cries of Rajni and the guilt of helplessness of saving her will always haunt me."

It must fall upon the shoulders of those of us so far spared such excruciating suffering, to pick up our own cross and follow in their footsteps, carrying forward the news that there can still be some good found in the world... good of our own making.