Launch of the Christmas Appeal

Ozanam House

27 November 2006

The Annual Appeal comes every year in as Christmas approaches. There is one obvious reason for that. It is a time of the year when the pain of poverty can strike even more deeply than usual. The rest of society engages in extraordinarily conspicuous consumption: Who eats the vast quantities of food and drink that leave the supermarkets in the days before Christmas? What happens to all the expensive presents? How well and for how long are the latest toys and gadgets appreciated?

Meanwhile, in our own city, there are people and families who will look on all of that spending as something that belongs to a different world. They will try desperately to make a Christmas that will give their children something to celebrate and some good memories to carry into their future lives. They will find it hard to provide even the basic necessities. That painful contrast is one reason why this is a good time to stir the consciences of the rest of us, living in a country which is wealthier than we ever dreamed possible.

But there is a second, deeper reason. Christmas is the celebration of God’s coming among us. The Eternal Word who is God, and through whom all things were made, became one of us. He became the brother of all of us. “He united himself in a certain way with each individual. He worked with human hands, he thought with a human mind, he acted with a human will, he loved with a human heart” In each human being we are to see the living image of the Creator; in them we see Christ who will speak to us in their name: ”I was hungry and thirsty”. He told us what was required of those who would follow him: Love your neighbour as yourself; love one another as I have loved you.

This Christmas Appeal is a time for recognising with great honesty that we do not love our neighbour as ourselves. We do not respond to our neighbours as we would to Christ their brother.

There are people around us who are living with loneliness and sorrow, and a sense of helplessness. We would never wish a friend or family member whom we loved trying to cope alone in such circumstances.

There are areas in our city where people live surrounded by burnt out houses, often living in fear of the weapons and the criminal activities around them, who see their children whom they love so much growing up without the chances that children living a few hundred metres away take for granted.

There are people living for decades in conditions that most of us would not survive. They are living in conditions which if they existed for that length of time in other parts of the city and the country would have seismic consequences. Public outrage would make irresistible demands on public representatives; the newspapers would be making it clear that this could not be tolerated; the electoral impact would be huge – on all parties – if indeed democracy did not collapse under the strain. If we can remain largely unmoved by all of this, then, quite simply, we do not love them as we love ourselves!

In the wake of events in recent weeks that have shocked all of us and shocked the country there have been some moves to address the problems of areas which have been marginalised and left behind, areas where the Celtic Tiger has never been seen. It is up to all of us – up to everybody in Limerick – to make sure that this time the response will be not only adequately funded, but will involve a proper integration of all the agencies, public and voluntary. This is a task for all of us; anyone who thinks of it simply as a matter for ‘them’ has not understood the fundamental commandment for a Christian that each of us is to love our neighbour as ourselves.

This bigger picture must not be an excuse for failing to do what we can now. The Society of Saint Vincent de Paul is an expression of that love of neighbour all through the year. The Christmas Appeal is a very important opportunity to strengthen and reinforce and support that work which has been described to you this evening. I appeal to everyone to be generous in responding to the Christmas appeal.

The final reason why this appeal is so necessary at this time of the year is for ourselves. In the last analysis the celebration of Christmas is not about food and presents and parties. It is about the birth of Jesus and about our gratitude for God’s love made visible in Christ.

To put it bluntly, if we try to celebrate Christmas without opening our hearts to Jesus in his brothers and sisters, we will celebrate with eyes that do not see, ears that do not hear, hearts that do not feel, and with minds that do not understand what we celebrate. Pope Benedict put it like this:

Only my readiness to encounter my neighbour and to show him (or her) love makes me sensitive to God as well. Only if I serve my neighbour can my eyes be opened to what God does for me and how much he loves me.

VATICAN II, Gaudium et Spes, 22.

JOHN PAUL II, Evangelium Vitae, 83.

BENEDICT XVI, Deus Caritas Est, 18.