Wishing you a
Merry Christmas and a Happy* New Year
I would like to show you a picture that indeed touches the heart of many German Christians:
Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, alias Benedict XVI, from Bavaria, Germany's south, Pontifex Maximus of the Catholic church, head of Vatican State, and Joachim Gauck from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany's north, Lutheran pastor, Federal President, both Männer des Geistes (men of the humanities), smilingly sit opposite each other without reserve. In the back watching is Vatican's George Clooney, the pope's secretary and recently appointed Titular Archbishop of Urbs Salvia, Georg Gänswein, who, by the way, still keeps his apartment in Freiburg's Herrenstraße.
*In Germany, we instead use the adjective Healthy instead of Happy particularly when we are of an advanced age
The photo (dpa) was recently taken during Gauck's official state visit to the Vatican. The picture is one of hope for my country, nearly torn apart for centuries by religious quarrels. Although I must admit that nowadays, most Germans couldn't care less about their Christian past. As in other countries, fewer and fewer people exercise their religion. Following 45 years of atheistic rule, there are pagan regions in Germany's east. This is a country to be evangelized, as it was at the time of Saint Boniface more than a thousand years ago.
Those of you who visited the Freiburger Münster may have seen the original stained-glass windows and looked at the following scene with a smile.
Newborn Jesus is wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger with the ox eating the child's diaper. Father Joseph is not amused and hits the ox on the snout with his cane. A comic of around 1300.
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