Fr. Gerard Francisco Timoner III, the first Filipino and Asian master general of the Order of Preachers (Dominicans), said that “Christmas comes to a world yearning for a Messiah that can heal its woundedness.”
In his Christmas message issued on Dec. 22, Timoner said Christians “tend to “sanitize” the disturbing details of the Christmas story.
“The Nativity scene in our churches and convents appears to be a tender and warm picture of a loving and peaceful family,” he wrote.
But “there is a dark side to Christmas.” And “darkness is part of Christmas.”
Also a member of the International Theological Commission that advises Pope Francis, Timoner referred to the apostolic exhortation “Admirable Signum” (AS). The new document issued early this month defends the Christmas practice of setting up the Nativity scene especially in public places and town squares, a practice that is under attack in liberal Northern America and secularist Europe.
“The Nativity scene is like a living Gospel rising up from the pages of sacred Scripture,” writes Pope Francis.
The Pope hopes AS will encourage the family tradition of preparing the nativity scene, “but also the custom of setting it up in the workplace, in schools, hospitals, prisons and town squares.”
Pope Francis says he hopes the custom will never be lost “and that, wherever it has fallen into disuse, it can be rediscovered and revived.”
Father Timoner said that in AS, Pope Francis discusses the various elements of the Nativity scene, especially the landscape of ruins where the manger scene is set off.
“These ruins appear to be inspired by the 13th-century Golden Legend of the Dominican Jacobus de Varagine, which relates a pagan belief that the Temple of Peace in Rome would collapse when a Virgin gave birth,” the Pope writes. “More than anything, the ruins are the visible sign of fallen humanity, of everything that inevitably falls into ruin, decays and disappoints. This scenic setting tells us that Jesus is newness in the midst of an aging world, that he has come to heal and rebuild, to restore the world and our lives to their original splendor.”
Father Timoner said it is the mission of every Christian to cast out darkness and to heal and rebuild.
“The sending of the Son by the Father on the first Christmas continues: ‘as the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ May the light of Christ shine through us, to dispel the darkness around us, within us.”
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