Christmas Past Present and Yet To Come

At this time of year in rural India there are Biblical nativity scenes everywhere you look.

I took this photograph last year, in a tiny village in the state of Chhattisgarh. I was visiting the catchment area of the Canossian Catholic nuns stationed at Laripani.
It was at the end of a wonderful day spent walking through pristine forests or hitching rides on tractors, trailing behind Sisters Jessy and Anita. We went hut to hut checking on people’s mental, physical and spiritual health and exchanging good-natured banter.
We heard about marauding elephants raiding the stores of freshly harvested rice, and how pigs could sense their arrival well before humans. So when the pigs started fussing someone climbed to the top of a home and yelled a warning to everyone in the village and out came the team with firecrackers to frighten away the haathi .
We were invited to imbibe the local liquor by cheerful grandmothers. “12 hours a day they work so hard, this is how they relax’ the nuns told me without any hint of judgment.

When we spotted this new Mum with her radiant smile and in her stable setting, Sister Jessy and I had the same thought – instead of a carol service in the chapel why not a peripatetic service, walking around the village with its readymade nativity scenes, babies, lowing cattle, stars in the bright sky and all?

We didn’t though. The tribal girls resident at the convent school had already planned an exuberant show of Christmas songs with accompanying and compulsory boisterous dancing.
We dared not miss this.

It is hard to hold on to such joyous sentiments during this unprecedentedly bleak period approaching Christmas 2023. Palestine, the birthplace of the baby Jesus, is rocked by violence. Elsewhere in the Middle East world leaders practically laughed in our faces at COP28 at which representatives from indigenous peoples most affected by the climate emergency were vastly outnumbered by lobbyists from fossil fuel companies touting for new contracts. Watching TV news the other night, I found myself almost in tears when Christmas shoppers were stopped and asked about the UK government’s hard-line policy to deter desperate migrants arriving in small boats on our shores (or dying in the attempt). Said one : ‘it’s not nice to see but…there’s no room at the inn.’

So… let me return to happy snapshots of Christmas past and present … from India. A country in which only 5% of the population is Christian but where everyone celebrates everyone else’s festivals. My mother, who spent her childhood in rural India, used to tell us that this was one of the best things about growing up there. To this day, and in spite of the frightening religious polarisation that has taken place in India in the last decade, Christmas Day is a national holiday. And enjoyed by all.

At the Canossian Convent in Motihari, Bihar – down the road from one of our associated eye hospitals, the MHKS - they host a huge event. Some years so many local people want to see the nativity crib that the police have to control the crowds. What’s more, the convent is the perfect setting for an inclusive cross-cultural affair.
Today’s beautiful Sneha Sadan is only there because of the solidarity shown by key members of different communities. Advocate Priya Ranjan Sharma, a Hindu, was seminal to this tale. In his own words:

‘I was good friends with the catholic priest – Father Vijay. At that time the Church owned quite a bit of land near the jheel (lake). Father Vijay wanted to build a convent there. Some local people, very much opposed to Christians, encroached on the land, little by little. So Father Vijay came to me for legal support.’

‘I took on the case. This caused bad feeling. They brought some trumped-up charges against both Father Vijay and myself. These were thrown out of court. By this time I knew we had to come to a compromise. So instead of trying to win back all the land, we agreed on just enough on which to build the convent. Everyone agreed.
But there were some who asked me – why are you supporting the Christians against us? I replied: I am neither pro-Christian nor anti-Christian. I am just human.’

As are we all.

Thank you, dear readers, for your continuing support for the small heroes and heroines in Bihar who help each other regardless of religion, caste, creed or class. If you able to spend time reading more about them in Blogs Past during the holiday season I would be thrilled.
I wish everyone the happiest and most peaceful Christmas possible wherever you are.

Lucy Mathen

#peaceandgoodwill   #happychristmas  #justbehuman