Daijiworld Media Network – Mangaluru (DV)
Mangaluru, Dec 23: Bishop of Mangalore diocese Dr Peter Paul Saldanha on Thursday December 23 in his Christmas message said, "Christmas invites to spread love and to give up hate and indifference.”
The bishop welcomed the media fraternity for the Christmas celebration and said, “You have been serving the society and the Christian community by giving news coverage about the activities in Mangalore diocese. I thank you for your kind service and I rejoice with you on this occasion. I invoke God's blessing upon you and your family.
"Christmas, the birth of Jesus, the Son of God, through Virgin Mary, is special. It is a unique event, never to be repeated. The angel told the shepherds that Holy Night, ‘I bring you good news of a great joy’. Indeed, many people experienced great joy because they saw God in human form.
"The name ‘Jesus’ means ‘God saves’. Jesus saves us from hatred and violent attitude. He promotes universal love and fraternity. We are fortunate that we live after his arrival. Jesus himself said, ‘Blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. Many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it’.
“During the joyful events in our families, we say to our loved ones, ‘I love you’. What does it mean? It means, ‘I want you to live’. Since the whole humanity is our family, to how many persons can we say ‘I want you to live?’ Today, the greatest tragedy is that the culture of indifference is growing. It is worse than hate. If we love someone, that person has a place in our heart and if we hate the person, he will be in our mind. But if we foster indifference, that person does not exist for us. We do not care, whether he is alive or dead. This is the danger we are in, for many promote division, violence and death.
“Jesus teaches us by example to care and share, to give and forgive the enemies, and never to hate anyone. Hatred and indifference will burn us before it burns others. It destroys our conscience. It destroys the goodness within us. We become ‘dead people walking’, kind of zombies.
“These days, we are talking about ‘Go green’ for creating a Swachh Bharat. Can we foster a Swachh mind and pure heart without hatred and indifference? Let this Christmas be for us, a challenge to foster a pure heart so that we see God in our neighbours and in nature. Let the people experience great joy in our presence,” the bishop said.
PROs Roy Castellino, Fr J B Saldana, Dr John D'Silva and Elias Fernandes were present.