SAFCAM Communique #29  (English)

SAFCAM Communique #29

            06/12/2020         

Dear Subscribers

Happy feast of Don Philip Rinaldi. (See his excellent 4-page biography on the website)

Already a week of advent has passed – 3 to go.

Until 20 years or so ago, this was the week to make sure Christmas cards were posted to the annual list of family and friends in order for these to reach their destination by ‘snail-mail’ on time. I don’t remember sending a single ‘hard-copy’ card for the past 12 years at least. Instead I now send digital ones, and since they reach email boxes and WhatsApp numbers within seconds, I can wait till Christmas eve to click send. But I still look for an original image each year to send with my greetings. So yesterday I searched for my 2020 Christmas cards with the help of Google! Searching ‘Christmas Cards’ found me 600 options in .065 seconds. Among all that set, only 3 had anything to do with the incarnation (2 with the magi and one a minimal nativity scene). I discovered that in order to find cards with images which relate to the birth of Jesus, you need to search for ‘Christmas nativity scenes’, not ‘Christmas cards’! And even when you do, among those on offer, you will find some weird ones, if not sacrilegious and offensive, like the 3 attached here! Sad! Really sad. We need to insist a lot more that Christ be put back into CHRISTmass; that Jesus is the reason for the season!  And if you google ‘Xmas cards’ you are led to sites of Xmas cards eBay, Amazon, for Charities, ideas to make-personalised… But again, hardly a religious image among them all?! Sad, really sad!

And have you heard? Protocols have been issued for the designing of cribs for Christmas 2020!

While uncertainty still hangs regarding health restrictions over Christmas due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the following regulations for creating nativity scenes have been issued:

Christians may install nativity scenes in their homes on condition that sanitary measures be respected!

1. A maximum of 4 shepherds will be permitted in the Crib.
2. All will have to wear a mask and observe social distancing.
3. Joseph, Mary, and Baby Jesus will be able to stay together as they form part of a family bubble.
4. The donkey and the ox will have to obtain a declaration of non-contamination certified by the Department of Agriculture.
5. The Three Wise Men will be subject to a 15-day quarantine, regardless of whether or not they have tested negative for Covid as they come from a non-Schengen Area.
6. The straw, moss, palm branches, and other decorations must be disinfected with alcohol.
7. The angel flying over the Crib will not be allowed due to the aerosol effect produced by the batting of its wings.
8. The choir will be restricted to one person because of the risk of contamination.
9. No shepherd shall be more than 65 years old or originating from a vulnerable category.
10. All non-essential participants (Romans, sinners…) are forbidden.
11. Pilate will explain to all authorised participants how to wash their hands.

Seriously! 

This week’s recommended viewing if you have not done so:

https://youtu.be/WtEZJIevStQ - The Rector Major says “It's time for GC28” – Here is the link to the first of 8 clips (5 minutes each) in which he will discuss the eight Lines of Action from his “Post-Chapter Reflections”.

https://youtu.be/H8sb4YV_dZI - The fourth ‘seed’ on “Young Salesians and accompaniment - Orientations and Guidelines” is presented in this 3-minute video clip.

Then browse through the new Vatican website – www.humandevelopment.va – which has been launched in the wake of Pope Francis’ Fratelli Tutti. His third encyclical which proclaims the very simple Gospel message of the “Brotherhood of Man” (excuse the sexist language) has received mixed reviews. Here is a brief extract for example from a review published this past week in that very respected British Catholic Weekly under the title:  How encyclicals became a mini-industry 

“…There was really very little that was strictly necessary in the encyclical. It was not the Pope arbitrating about disputed matters of faith and morals; it was more about him sharing his thoughts on the events of the day. In other words, it was rather typical of the modern encyclical – usually a kind of circular letter addressed to bishops – that is, an expression of creeping papalism.

 Cardinal Newman would have taken a dim view of Fratelli Tutti, not necessarily the content  (though he probably wouldn’t have cared for it) but the notion that it is the pope’s job to sound off at intervals in encyclicals about matters that bother him.”

- by Melanie McDonagh - The Tablet on November 26, 2020   (Cynical and sad, really sad!)

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All the best for the second week of advent,

Camiel and François