Gary Cassidy died on Christmas Day 2002. He was 28. He was a member of a loving family, He was very intelligent, had a great job and wonderful possibilities for the future. Sadly illness intervened. He was admitted as a patient to the Foyle Hospice in Derry some months before and, on the afternoon of Christmas Day, when everyone was celebrating new life and the birth of Jesus, Gary was called to his new life. He prepared for death as assiduously as he had prepared for life. Gary’s death offered me a new perspective to the Christmas story. The Advent season and the liturgies of Advent season, chosen to prepare us for Christmas, paradoxically, provide a wonderfully appropriate preparation for death. I had never quite perceived them in that light before. Isaiah is an ever present figure nudging us to prepare, urging us to get ready. But Christmas is not about death. It is about birth and salvation ‘Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord’. It is a festival that fills us with hope and expectation. The simple scene at Bethlehem has inspired many of the world greatest artists. The beauty and wonder of a new born baby is one of the most persuasive proofs of the existence of a Creator, an all-powerful master designer. The events of the first Christmas, the birth of Jesus, highlight the precious nature of every human life. The Good News that Jesus brought illuminated our world and gave us a reason for life and living. Sadly many people still ignore that Good News. At we approach the end of a year in which yet another war blighted our world, a world in which so many human lives have been deliberately ended or ruined by conflict, by terrorism, by murder or by abortion, we need to focus yet again on the true significance of Christmas more than ever before. Christmas has a powerful significance and resonance for us, whether it is a time of birth, or a time of death, or all the days and months and years in between. It is a message for all seasons. May I wish all of you every blessing for Christmas and the New Year. Most Rev Edward Daly, D.D. Retired Bishop of Derry December 2003 |