Happy New Year!

A Happy and Holy Christmas

I can't do Christmas without the cold. My ability to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ is hopelessly North European. For all the fake snow that was poured into shop fronts in what is the middle of summer in Rio de Janeiro, I just couldn't get in the mood.

In nearby Barra da Tijuca, there was no sign of a credit crunch as wealthy cariocas flocked to shops that were decked out with decorations that would have made Harrods proud. Not even in the High Street in Cidade de Deus could Edson Guedes dressing up as Father Christmas do the trick. And church wasn't much help either as I couldn't sing any of the carols as the tunes were all different. And I thought everybody knew "O come all ye faithful"!

Then a former colleague wrote to me saying: "I can't imagine how any Brit ditches the heritage to celebrate Christmas so near to the equator. Every now and then I say to myself "It's the Incarnation, stupid!", like that quote from Bill Clinton's presidential campaign: "It's the Economy, stupid!"

And it suddenly all started to make sense. I had to give up all thought of Christmas Past and concentrate on Being Here. It was a task made all the easier by a present to us from Luiz Coelho, a very talented diocesan ordinand, who wrote this stunning icon of the Nativity: Mother and Child in their unfinished home of breeze-block and tin precariously perched on a hill with precious little privacy and few comforts. But JOY in the recognition of themselves as 'gift' to one another.

So the handful of us that gathered on Christmas Eve to celebrate a premature Midnight Mass found that same joy in each other's company as we passed the Christ Child from one to the next before finally placing Him in the Crib. On Christmas Day a torrential downpour ensured that I was the only person in church. I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. I'd come all that way for just me and Him. But then perhaps that is what the Incarnation is all about.




















It's no joke for Edson dressing up as Santa Claus in all that heat! Whilst shoppers in Rio's malls found no shortage of snowmen to bring home the reason for the season!