The "economic miracle" of the country's post-war recovery was in full swing. Before the end of the decade, a best-selling book would tout Japan as Number One.

However, the miracle was not yet complete, even in the capital Tokyo.

Large parts of the metropolis were not yet connected to a sewer system, and so what English-speakers called "honey wagons," trucks that pumped out septic tanks, were a common sight and smell in residential neighbourhoods.

Buildings slapped together after World War 2 were being replaced with more substantial structures.

Supermarkets had not yet replaced vendors selling foodstuffs and household items from handcarts.

They used bells, horns or chants to advertise their presence, with different instruments and tunes depending upon their product. I miss them much more than I miss the honey wagons.

Equipped with only a few weeks of language study, I decided to spend my Christmas vacation from language school up north on the snowy island of Hokkaido, staying with a priest in a coal-mining town where the travel instructions were basically, "Go to the middle of nowhere and turn right into the mountains."

The middle of nowhere was easy to find since it was the town where steam locomotives that served much of the island met up with diesel trains.

So, there was always a cloud of black smoke over the place visible from far away.

Now that town is no longer a travel hub, and it does not even exist anymore; it was merged with another.

When I arrived, the priest told me that he had been contacted by people in a little settlement farther out in the mountains.

They wanted to have a Christmas party for their kids.

They knew that the church had something to do with Christmas and knew as well that the priest would not arrive empty-handed.

So, we loaded fruit and candy into the car on Christmas Eve and drove off into a winter wonderland. We drove, that is until we could go no farther on the snowbound road. We hiked the last part of the way.

The party was in a shack with the wind whistling through the walls. There was a handful of kids and a drunk man in a Santa suit.

The priest told the kids the story of Christmas and then taught them to play Bingo.

One of them was intellectually handicapped and could not understand the numbers for the game.

Since I had at least learned my numbers, we were paired as a team.

Here I was in a drafty shed with snow blowing through the walls.

A drunken Santa Claus was snoozing in the corner.

I understood next to nothing that was being said, teamed up with a poor kid for whom, apart from pointing to numbers on a Bingo card, I could do nothing.

I was on the far side of the globe from my family and friends, and all that Christmas with them meant.

I began to feel lonely, thoroughly miserable, and sorry for myself.

What the hell kind of Christmas was this?

And then, so forcefully that it almost seemed audible enough to be heard by everyone, one word came to me: Bethlehem.

This year will be a kind of reenactment of that Christmas in a shed in Japan for many of us.

COVID-19 forces us to do without so much that traditionally makes the feast and season special - being with family and friends, partying, visiting, shopping, gifting, feasting, even churchgoing.

This year, much of that is impossible.

Many of us mourn family and friends lost to the disease.

Many are out of work and sinking beneath financial disaster.

Schools are disrupted.

Experts tell us that things will worsen as January is likely to be the worst month before vaccines become widely available and begin to beat back the plague.

What the hell kind of Christmas is this?

With so much else stripped away, even life itself, one word remains. Bethlehem.

Like it or not, we are forced to face this Christmas with everything stripped away except the simple fact that Christ is with us not as a doll under the Christmas tree, not as the subject of songs and stories, not as a distraction from the other elements of the season, but as God with us, Emmanuel.

God with us in our worst situation.

God with us in our own poverty and that of others. God with us not to make everything as we wish, but God with us to share our confusion, our disappointment, our pain, our death.

That is the meaning of Bethlehem.

This year, Christmas is either about God with us, or it is nothing.

If Covid Christmas teaches us that, next year, we may resume the trappings of the season, but with new unclouded knowledge of what the feast really is.

A note: that priest with whom I spent my first Japan Christmas died last April, one of Covid's victims.

• Bill Grimm is the publisher of UCANews.com. He is a Catholic priest and Maryknoll missioner who lives in Japan.

We read about them in history books without giving much thought to how the world could have been different had they stayed with us.

In this instance, the subject is Bethlehem, a city that is vanishing in front of our eyes. Does it matter?

This is the question I have been asking myself since Christmas 2004, when I embarked on a film that was meant to chronicle the changes taking place in my hometown.

Israel had just started building a wall that today confines Bethlehem to less than 13 per cent of its original territory, a development that threatens to drive out all of its Christian population.

I have always known that Bethlehem is a unique place but it was always difficult to put it into words.

Despite its global fame, no one has tried to tell the story of my town beyond the stereotypes of the Nativity or the brutality of military occupation.

Yet Bethlehem does have another story, and understanding it is key to a meaningful engagement with the politics of the Middle East.

It wasn't until very recently that I discovered an account that supports my long-held belief about Bethlehem's unusual pedigree. Continue reading.

Source: The Elders

Image: Operation Bethlehem/Centre for Cultural Heritage Preservation

The blaze tore through the building late last Thursday night and police and the fire service are investigating its cause.

Erana and Peter Bidois were watching a movie at a relative's house opposite the building when they noticed an orange flame coming from one of the windows about 11pm.

"Within seconds the whole thing just went up in flames. The heat from it was just crazy," Mrs Bidois said.

"It was silent but all you could hear was just popping, the windows popping.

"It was huge. The whole thing just looked like a ball of fire."

The Maori carvings and all the Maori taonga in the building have been destroyed there

Local kaumatua Karora Smith said the community was still coming to terms with the loss.

It was not just the church community but the wider community who used the building that would be affected, he said.

Mr Smith said the chapel was built about 40 years ago when the congregation outgrew the small church building at the marae.

Tauranga Police CIB Detective Caroyln Crawford confirmed police are treating the fire as suspicious and have scene guards in places as detectives investigate the area.

Carolyn says police investigating the cause of the fire are keen to hear from anyone who may have seen any suspicious people or vehicles in the area at the time.

Anyone with information is to contact Tauranga police on 07 577 4300 or anonymously on 0800 Crimestoppers and quote file number 140207/5050.

Source

• Bay of Plenty Times
• Sunlive
• Image: SunLive

Wrapped in scaffolding, the basilica located at the traditional site of Jesus' birth is undergoing a much-needed facelift after 600 years.

Experts say that water is leaking from the rooftop and threatens to cause serious damage to mosaics and other priceless items.

Project manager Afif Tweme said the first stage of the project began in September and is addressing the most pressing issues: the rooftop and windows.

"The water also has a bad effect on the plastering surfaces, on the mosaics, on the floors, on the frescoes. It could damage any, any historical elements inside the church," said Tweme, who works for the "Community Development Group," a Palestinian engineering consulting firm.

The companies carrying out the works are obliged to minimize any disruptions to visitors and make sure that pilgrims can "pass freely inside the church and safely," he added.

The church is one of Christianity's most visited and sacred shrines.

Standing above the grotto where, according to tradition, Jesus was born, the church attracted more than 2 million visitors last year.

But the building, with remnants up to 1,500 years old, has been neglected for decades. Continue reading.

Source: AP/Huffington Post

Image: AP Photo/Nasser Nasser

As we remind ourselves each year, Joseph and Mary made their long journey, compelled by a census. It became a journey of joy as Mary gave birth to a baby whom we call the Prince of Peace.

As we sing Christmas carols we are invited to think of Bethlehem on the night when Jesus was born. This year I'd invite you to think also of what Bethlehem has become today.

To make the journey from Nazareth in Israel to Bethlehem in the occupied Palestinian territories today, Mary and Joseph would have to cross through approximately 70 Israeli barriers - checkpoints, fences, walls and barriers which would involve multiple interrogations and delays - and they would be lucky to be allowed through at all.

These same barriers prevent shepherds watching their flocks, either by day or by night. Most people in Bethlehem have been cut off from their grazing lands, having significant economic effects. Continue reading.

Bishop Pat Power is a retired auxiliary bishop of Canberra and Goulburn. He is a member of the Palestine Israel Ecumenical Network.

Source: Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn, this article was reprinted in December's Wel-Com

Image: Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn

The Society of St Yves, a Catholic human rights group which argued the case on the monastery's behalf, said an Israeli appeals court had endorsed a plan to expand the barrier it had built in the area.

The wall would surround the convent on three sides and cut it off from most of its land, the group said.

Continue reading

The proposed route of the Israeli wall will also affect the Salesian order's Cremisan monastery and winery, which will be on the Israel side of the wall.

The Salesian sisters who educate about 450 West Bank children fear their pupils will no longer be able to come to school, and the West Bank labourers who work in the winery's vineyards and maintain the Salesian buildings fear they will lose their jobs.

Not only will the workers be on the other side of the wall and need permits to travel to the winery, but the wall will also separate the monastery from grapes supplied from other religious communities on the West Bank.

"Proceeding with this plan will cut families off from agricultural and recreational lands, other family members, water sources, and schools — including depriving Christian Palestinian youth of fellowship with their peers," said Bishop Richard Pates, chair of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' committee on international justice and peace.

"The Cremisan Valley situation is a microcosm of a protracted pattern that has serious implications for the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict," Bishop Pates said in a letter to recently-retired US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

"As the wall moves and constricts more and more communities in the West Bank, the possibility of a future resolution becomes less likely.

"Moving the wall and disassociating Palestinian families from their lands and livelihoods will incite more resentment against the state of Israel among residents of the West Bank, not less, increasing the frustrations that can lead to violence."

In addition to its range of table wines, the Cremisan winery makes altar wine that is used in many of the shrines of the Holy Land — and is also exported to churches in Britain.

Sources:

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

AsiaNews

Catholics Confront Global Poverty

Catholic Herald

Image: CNEWA

The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, built over the cave venerated as Christ's birthplace, is the oldest complete church in the Christian world. It was dedicated in 339.

Unesco also granted the site endangered status and funding for repairs — despite strong objections from the United States and Israel.

Bethlehem is in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority exercises limited self-rule. Israel saw the Palestinian move to gain world heritage status for the church as an effort to embarrass Israel on the world stage.

Last year, Unesco granted the Palestinians full membership, a decision seen at the time as a boost to their bid, since largely stalled, to win unilateral statehood recognition from the United Nations.

The Palestinian Authority's request included part of the Pilgrimage Route, the path which tradition says Joseph and Mary took to the city on their journey from Nazareth 2000 years ago.

The Palestinian government plans to register about 20 more sites with Unesco, including the ancient city of Jericho and the archaeological site of Sebastia — a traditional site for the burial of St John the Baptist.

The Church of the Nativity is almost wholly a Greek Orthodox place of worship, while the Armenian Orthodox and Catholics have rights to some areas.

More than two million people visit the church each year.

Commenting on Unesco's decision, the Franciscan Custodian of the Holy Land, Father Pierbattista Pizzabella, OFM, said all three churches hoped that "holy sites will be considered first and foremost as holy places of worship, and that cultural and political issues, whether local or international, are excluded from their management, daily life and dynamics".

Sources:

The Guardian

Custodia Terrae Sanctae

Seetheholyland

Image: Seetheholyland