En kommentar til nyttårsfeiringa
Etter at nyttårsfeiringa nettopp er over, var det interessant å lese hva pave Benedikt sa nyttårsaften, da han sammenlignet det vanlige og det kirkelige nyttåret. Muligens bruker han litt sterke ord når han karakteriserer nyttårsfeiringa som ”prega av underholdning ofte brukt som en flukt fra virkeligheten”. Les selv hva ha sa:
Denne kvelden, 31. desember, opplever vi to ting samtidig: Det ene er avslutninga av kalenderåret, det andre er høytida for Maria, Guds mor, som avslutter juleoktaven. Det første markers av alle, det andre er for de troende.
The first occasion, very suggestive, is linked to the dimension of time. In the final hours of the solar year, we assist at so many worldly ‘rites’ that are, in the present context, predominantly devoted to entertainment, and often lived as an escape from reality, almost as if to exorcise its negative aspects and to propitiate improbable good fortune.
How different should the attitude of the Christian community be!
The Church is called on to live these hours by taking on the sentiments of the Virgin Mary. Together with her, we are invited to look on the Baby Jesus – a new sun that has appeared on the horizon of humanity, and comforted by His light, urges us to present to Him ‘the joys and hopes, the sorrows and anguish of men today, especially the poor and all who suffer.»
Thus, two different valuations of the dimension ‘time’ confront each other – one quantitative, the other qualitative. On the one hand, the solar cycle, with its rhythms; on the other, that which St. Paul calls ‘the fullness of time’, that is, the culminating moment of the history of the universe and the human species, when the Son of God is born to the world. The time of promises is fulfilled, and when Mary’s pregnancy reaches term, «earth,» as a psalm says, «gave forth its fruit.»
The coming of the Messiah, pre-announced by the prophets, is the event that is qualitatively the most important in history, on whom it confers its ultimate and full sense.