World News This Week in Prayer
Christmas 2020
This does not feel like Christmas.
Sorry, God, but we have to say it bluntly.
It doesn’t feel like Christmas. Most of our treasured Christmas traditions – off limits due to the pandemic. Worship services severely curtailed, or moved to online only. Businesses closed or in danger of closing permanently. Too many ill, or dead, or living in fear of the virus. Carol singing – no, it’s not safe to sing in public. Family visits – relegated to Zoom or Facetime or phone, or (against the advice of health officials) still held in person, trying to convince yourself that you and yours will not be infected. And if we do meet others on the street, we can’t even see our smiles through the masks.
God, it doesn’t feel like Christmas to those whose lives have been upended by storms of the century, or blistering wildfires, or rising sea levels, or needed rains or freezing temperatures that never come or barely stay. It doesn’t feel like Christmas to the ones trying to survive under regimes that foment xenophobia or racism; where the poor are blamed for their own poverty; where ethnic groups that have lived there for generations are disenfranchised, ostracized or pushed out.
It doesn’t feel like Christmas, despite the hope raised by the new anti-Covid-19 vaccines. Despite the stunning conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, which won’t be this close again for 800 years. Despite the moments of unexpected kindness, the beauty of a new snow fall, the soaring joy of hearing a migrating flock of geese overhead, the tender memories stirred up by a favorite ornament. Despite all our efforts to connect with our friends and family somehow and make it a Christmas to celebrate anyway, or the unexpected (and maybe slightly-guilty) comfort of spending the holidays alone. For many of us, it doesn’t feel like Christmas, even when we hear again the ancient stories, the words that underlie our faith.
Except that…maybe it’s in the depths of our uneasiness that You, God, are inviting us to say yes to the angels who promise that Christ will be born again, a tiny spark, in each of our hearts.
Maybe you are inviting us to join with Mary, and with Miriam (Moses’ sister) before, to shout out, to live out, the ancient promises that the hungry will be filled with good things, and the rich sent away empty. Perhaps you are inviting us to see you as filled with unending mercy.
Maybe you are inviting us to understand how it could be that God gave up all that power and majesty to be born as a human child. To be with and among us then, 2000 years ago, and to be with us, in the pandemic, here today.
It doesn’t feel like Christmas this year.
But maybe, in the deepest silences of our hearts, maybe if we listen closely…
…Maybe it does.
As is our custom on Christmas, we invite you to join in blessing every person, every creature, every place in every nation on earth:
A – C
Afghanistan … Albania … Algeria … Andorra … Angola … Antigua and Barbuda … Argentina … Armenia … Australia … Austria … Azerbaijan … The Bahamas … Bahrain … Bangladesh … Barbados … Belarus … Belgium … Belize … Benin … Bhutan … Bolivia … Bosnia and Herzegovina … Botswana … Brazil … Brunei … Bulgaria … Burkina Faso … Burundi … Cabo Verde … Cambodia … Cameroon … Canada … Central African Republic … Chad … Chile … China … Colombia … Comoros … Congo, Democratic Republic of the … Congo, Republic of the … Costa Rica … Côte d’Ivoire … Croatia … Cuba … Cyprus … Czech Republic
D – J
Denmark … Djibouti … Dominica … Dominican Republic … East Timor (Timor-Leste) … Ecuador … Egypt … El Salvador … Equatorial Guinea … Eritrea … Estonia … Eswatini … Ethiopia … Fiji … Finland … France … Gabon … The Gambia … Georgia … Germany … Ghana … Greece … Grenada … Guatemala … Guinea … Guinea-Bissau … Guyana … Haiti … Honduras … Hungary … Iceland … India … Indonesia … Iran … Iraq … Ireland … Israel … Italy … Jamaica … Japan … Jordan
K – M
Kazakhstan … Kenya … Kiribati … Korea, North … Korea, South … Kosovo … Kuwait … Kyrgyzstan … Laos … Latvia … Lebanon … Lesotho … Liberia … Libya … Liechtenstein … Lithuania … Luxembourg … Madagascar … Malawi … Malaysia … Maldives … Mali … Malta … Marshall Islands … Mauritania … Mauritius … Mexico … Micronesia, Federated States of … Moldova … Monaco … Mongolia … Montenegro … Morocco … Mozambique … Myanmar (Burma)
N – S
Namibia … Nauru … Nepal … Netherlands … New Zealand … Nicaragua … Niger … Nigeria … North Macedonia … Norway … Oman … Pakistan … Palau … Panama … Papua New Guinea … Paraguay … Peru … Philippines … Poland … Portugal … Qatar … Romania … Russia … Rwanda … Saint Kitts and Nevis … Saint Lucia … Saint Vincent and the Grenadines … Samoa … San Marino … Sao Tome and Principe … Saudi Arabia … Senegal … Serbia … Seychelles … Sierra Leone … Singapore … Slovakia … Slovenia … Solomon Islands … Somalia … South Africa … Spain … Sri Lanka … Sudan … Sudan, South … Suriname … Sweden … Switzerland … Syria
T-Z
Taiwan … Tajikistan … Tanzania … Thailand … Togo … Tonga … Trinidad and Tobago … Tunisia … Turkey … Turkmenistan … Tuvalu … Uganda … Ukraine … United Arab Emirates … United Kingdom … United States … Uruguay … Uzbekistan … Vanuatu … Vatican City … Venezuela … Vietnam … Yemen … Zambia … Zimbabwe
0 Comments