Christmas peace is more than
an armed truce
Christ wants us to share his peace with others

In 1914, during the horrible World War I, an unplanned Christmas truce occurred between German and British troops in a section of no man's land, a deadly war zone.

The truce was initiated by the Germans who began to sing Christmas carols in their trenches. Then they walked in trust towards their British enemies.

Meanwhile some British soldiers climbed out of their trenches and walked equally in trust across the deadly area towards the Germans.

True spirit of Christmas

What followed embodied the true spirit of Christmas. British and German soldiers met, shook hands, and gave each other Christmas greetings. They exchanged cigars and cigarettes, newspapers, food, drink, and addresses.

Then they returned to their trenches and pointed their deadly weapons again at the enemies whom they had just embraced in peace as brothers. For a few hours in the most unlikely place, Christmas brought peace on earth and good will towards men.

Sharing Christmas peace

This glimpse of Christmas spirit was a grassroots movement that came from the soldiers. The high command on both sides ordered that no such thing should happen again.

The next year at Christmas some soldiers who experienced the truce and who were lucky enough to survive the year tried to re-enact it. They were shot dead by their own men who had strict orders to prevent them.

Christmas is more than an armed truce where people take off for a few hours from killing each other. Christ was born at Christmas so that he could show us how to live together as brothers and sisters in peace as reflected in the Christmas truce of the soldiers.

Christ wants us, his followers, to receive and to share his Christmas peace with others. In a Christmas Sermon St. Augustine preached that God became man so that man might become God.

In John 3:16 it is stated, "For God so loved the world that God gave us his only Son so that those who believe in him may not perish, but have the gift of Eternal Life."

Beyond our comprehension

The gift of Heaven which Jesus desires to give us is beyond our comprehension. In First Corinthians 2:9, it is stated, "What eye has not seen, ear has not heard, and what has not entered the human heart what God has prepared for those who love Him."

In the encyclical Pacem in Terris, Blessed Pope John XXIII said that peace is a gift from God. It is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit.

To share God's gift of peace, we must ask the Holy Spirit to help us to disarm our hearts of violence and replace it with the peace of Jesus. As stated in Isaiah 2:4, Jesus can teach us to beat our swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks. One nation shall not raise their swords against another, nor shall they train for war again.

The Holy Spirit can help us to eliminate the poverty, injustice, and deprivation of human rights that lead to war. Disarmament needs to be encouraged, as recent popes have stressed. The Second Vatican Council declared that the arms race is an utterly treacherous trap for humanity.

In 1953, President Eisenhower, a former general, stated, "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, and every rocket fired represents in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed."

Fostering peace

On my sabbatical at Notre Dame, Fr Peter Rema, a priest from Bangladesh, stated that his tribe converted to Catholicism because they were inspired by Christ's message of peace which the missionaries taught and lived. Like them we can help to bring Christ's peace in many ways.

We can urge our elected representatives to work for policies that foster peace. When we exchange the sign of peace at Mass, we can strive to make it a visible sign of our desire to be at peace with God and each other.

Pray for peace

We can pray for peace. In 1959 President Eisenhower also said, "I like to believe that in the long run people are going to promote peace more than generals."

Jesus was born to reconcile us with each other and the Father and to teach us how to live in peace and harmony. In John 14:27, in his farewell discourse, Jesus tells his apostles, "Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you."

In the prayer of St. Francis, Jesus invites us to be instruments of his peace in our homes, work, parish, and family. When we do this, we can help to spread the Christmas peace that the soldiers briefly shared in 1914 across the face of God's wounded but good earth.

May we strive through grace to be instruments of God's peace not only on Christmas but every day of the year.

Fr. Don Lange is pastor emeritus for the Diocese of Madison.

Bringing 'Good News' to the poor
Adding the missions to your Christmas gift-giving list

		Propagation  of the Faith  Msgr. Delbert  Schmelzer

It was as if the angels had returned - that chorus who had proclaimed the "good news of great joy for all people" on that first Christmas.

For many years, life was most difficult for those living in one area of Cotabato on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines. Parents struggled to provide for the most basic needs of their children. Children had no opportunity for education. For the poor here, there was little "good news."

Sisters gave witness

Then the Sisters came. The Religious of Notre Dame of the Missions visited families, listening to their problems, sharing their pain, and praying with them. They started schools, offering an education to the Dulangan Manobo people in a culturally sensitive way. They provided medical care.

Above all, these Sisters were a visible presence of the Church. In all they did and said, they gave witness to Jesus' healing, saving love.

"Families are already baptized," says Sister Kathleen. "The people here see the Church as caring, and learn about Jesus through our example. We can do this only with prayers and loving support from our sisters and brothers in the faith around the world."

Underground children

This story - a tale of great need met with the loving service of missionaries - is repeated throughout Asia, Africa, the Pacific Islands, and remote regions of Latin America. A constant in the narrative is the support of the Church's work by the Society for the Propagation of the Faith.

Annually some of that help reaches the Church in Mongolia. There, missionary priests serve the thousands of street children of the country's capital city of Ulaanbaator. Family tragedy and extreme poverty has pushed these children to their sewer homes, deep underground.

Into this world every day journeys Fr. Gilbert Sales. He brings food and warm, clean clothes. Above all, he stays with the children - a listening ear, an open heart, a sign of God's great love. He offers them the joy-filled "Good News" of Jesus.

Above ground, Father Sales runs a center for street children, providing a bed, meals, and schooling. "Most of the children are non-Christians but I invite them to come to the nearby church," he says. "Some of them follow me there, eager and happy to hear about Jesus."

Africa's catechists

A continent away, in Zambia in Africa, Bartholomew Zulu is one of the hundreds of catechists in this African nation.

They teach the Catholic faith and provide spiritual support among their own people. They conduct prayer services on Sundays when a priest cannot get to that village; they visit the sick and bury the dead.

"I thank God for the wonderful things God has done for me," Zulu says. "And I want others to come to know the 'Good News' of the Lord's great love for us."

Christmas gift of help

This Christmas, will you help the poor come to know the "Good News" of Jesus? Will you add the missions to your gift-giving list? As little as $5 a day can help to support the work of local Sisters, priests, and catechists - that's just $35 a week.

Through your prayers and support, you will accompany these missionaries as they continue to proclaim the angels' joy-filled, hope-filled "Good News" of God's great love revealed in His Son, Jesus.

Msgr. Delbert Schmelzer is director of the Propagation of the Faith for the Diocese of Madison. Contributions to the Propagation of the Faith may be made at the parish or may be sent to: P.O. Box 44983, Madison, WI 53744-4983.

Christmas with Grande Mere

		Grand Mom  Audrey  Mettel Fixmer

We used to sing "The Old Grey Mare she ain't what she used to be, ain't what she used to be . . ." But since my two-year-old grandson Gregory and his four-month-old brother Robert came to town, my theme song has been "The Old Grande Mere (French for grandma) she ain't what she used to be."

That's because I've been whacked with the realization that my body is out of order and my head is out of touch with the times.

It's a new world

When I recently visited our newest grandsons, I became painfully aware of the new world in which we live.

I brought two-year-old Gregory a new Playskool toy, a school bus, to stimulate his already active imagination. When we got it out of the box (with a little help from our friends), Gregory immediately, to my astonishment, pressed a button and had it talking. "All aboard," the bus driver said, "We're going to school now."

Each of the kids on the bus had something to say, too. Wouldn't you know? Gregory didn't seem surprised, but I certainly was.

When Gregory tired of that, I enthusiastically suggested he bring me a book to read to him. I can still read, by golly! When I opened the book, however, loud music and a big voice boomed out of that, too. What's left for the kids' imagination? What's left for old grandmas to do?

Was a 'Rockin' Grandma'

I've been in the grandmother business for a long time. I was a grandmother at 40 and a great-grandmother at 65. Then my son John and his wife Janine treated us to new grandsons and moved back to the Midwest last month and we became different kinds of grandparents: the Rocking Chair kind.

I had assumed I could still be useful caring for baby Robert, at least. I could rock him. But much to my horror I discovered that I couldn't get up out of the rocking chair while holding him!

With my earlier grandkids I was a "Rockin' Grandma," the cool kind, who attempted to teach her first grandsons, Tom's Jeff and Kenny, how to do cartwheels on the school playground. I had to follow up this antic with a visit to the doctor, who informed me that I was too old for that stuff . . . at 45. I have always learned the hard way, I guess.

In those years I was a different grandma. Birthdays and Christmases were exciting times for the kids and I was the biggest kid of all. I enjoyed taking the "birthday grandchild" out to lunch and buying them a small gift.

When Hillary was five or six she thought that I was a pretty cool grandma because I bought her the latest thing in Dydee Dolls which could be fed and changed. I laughingly told her dad when I brought her home, "You have another mouth to feed."

Christmas past and present

Books were always an important part of the Christmas festivities. Most years we began at dusk with the grandkids piling on and around their grandpa to hear him read the story of the first Christmas. I can still hear his strong, beautiful voice that resounded clearly in the kitchen as I and my older daughters prepared the feast.

Then came the happy years when the grandkids entertained us with original Christmas plays, usually written by granddaughter Lesley and starring her cousins Erich, Kristi, and Hillary. Our home on Christmas Eve was filled with laughter and music, especially after Tim moved back to Wisconsin with his musical family.

'The wonders of new life'

This year Christmas will bear little resemblance to Christmas Past. Bob and I will be guests in our daughter's home. I will bring a "dish to pass" and one of the kids will deliver grandpa safe and sound from his senior residence, and we will sit and let everyone wait on us.

Natalie, Lesley, and Kristi will each in turn sit by us to report how grad. school is going. Erich will be home on leave from the Air Force, and Dylan and Hillary will compare notes on college life in Colorado and Wisconsin. Jeff and Kenny, those little guys I taught to do cartwheels, won't be here because they have kids of their own to coach.

This year we will have the added fun of younger kids again. Gregory will entertain us, and this grandma will be able to hold a cooing, smiling five-month-old Robert. I will remember 59 years ago when I held my first newborn at Christmas, and felt a strange connection to Mary and her newborn son.

The wonders of new life! The wonders of continued love, and the blessings of family!

Merry Christmas.

"Grandmom" likes hearing from other senior citizens who enjoy aging at P.O. Box 216, Fort Atkinson, WI 53538.