Christmas this year must be celebrated “in a restrained and quiet way” but “an involuntary halt of life could provide us more time for ourselves and for other people, and doing so may allow more time for God, too”, Bishop Tamás Fabiny, the head of the Hungarian Lutheran Church, told MTI on Thursday, Christmas Eve.
Love for ones we cannot meet this time could be expressed through “a number of gestures” such as telephone calls or letters, Fabiny said. Concerning the coronavirus pandemic, the bishop said that though it inflicted the whole world, Jesus’s birth was good tidings for the whole of the world, too. Fabiny said that the enthusiasm of believers attending online services in large numbers during the first wave of the epidemic have now ebbed, because “people are overwhelmed by the broadcasts and quarantine videos flooding them from all directions” and warned that “we must return to the practice of addressing people individually” rather than just “send the message into the air and hope that there will be somebody to listen”.
hungarymatters.hu
pixabay
