God gave us his only Son, what can we offer? Giving - Christ the King

p a ge 4 T H E C H R O N I C L E | W H E R E W E A R E N O W | Parish Newsletter
Frankfurt, December 2010 – January 2011
When he queried his translator
he was told, “You did not
ask!” The translator had neglected
to convey the final line
of each person’s commentary:
»Brothers and sisters pray
for me, that I might better
understand the Scripture.«
Do we need one another
in order to understand our
sacred texts? Given its central
role in the Christian faith, one
would expect the Bible to be
a source of unity. Too often,
h o w e v e r, Christians loudly
disagree on a variety of issues,
their only commonality
being that they all cite scripture
to justify their conflicting
positions.
Some observers simply
conclude that the Bible can
be used to prove any point
and is therefore meaningless.
A growing number of others,
like Patte, see the challenge
d i ff e r e n t l y. They believe that
through an overemphasis on
private interpretation and
Bible study conducted only
among the like-minded, we
have forgotten that the Bible’s
creation, reception, and ongoing
interpretation are inherently
communal.
» S c r i p t u r e ’s a community
book,« says Sister Te r e s a
Okure, professor of New Testament
at the Catholic Institute
of West Africa. “Individuals
may have written it, but it’s
a community that accepted
it. And the community said,
‘This is what really expresses
our faith.’ So we really do
need one another to be able
to understand.”
Christmas
in the tropics –
Ve n e z u e l a
Submitted by Tina Banerjee
C h i t t o m
I have little sympathy for
the protagonist of “I’m Dreaming
of a White Christmas”.
For a large portion of my
early life a white Christmas
was but a dream and yet, even
as an oil brat in Ve n e z u e l a ,
Christmas managed to be
really “Christmassey” in spite
of the fact that I had to get
used to the local customs.
Christmas trees existed in
Venezuela, an import from
the “gringos”, and they were
being sold everywhere along
the roads. The traditional
Christmas decoration, howe
v e r, was the nativity
scene. Derived
from the
Spanish custom,
“el
p e s e b r e ”
c o n s i s t e d
of the
m a n g e r
with Mary,
J o s e p h ,
baby Jesus
and the mule
and ox. In
Venezuela, the traditional
bringer of “Niño Jesús”,
who was increasingly faced
with tough competition from
“Sahnta Close” (Santa Claus).
The only hint of a “white
Christmas”, albeit in a completely
different sense, was
the ponche crema, a sort of
eggnog traditionally drunk
at Christmas, made of milk,
eggs, sugar and rum, to go
with “hallacas”, the traditional
Venezuelan Christmas
dish. Hallacas are a sort of
pastry made out of maize
(corn) dough and filled with
capers, olives and meat, wrapped
in plaintain leaves, and
b o i l e d .
When the season came
around at the private Spanishspeaking
school I attended,
peace on Earth and goodwill
really did seem to reign for
that short period. There were
almost no regular classes,
and we all made
“ h a l l a c a s ”
t o g e t h e r.
The whole school put on a
pageant for the parents with
us dressed as characters from
the Bible, we would parade
singing “aguinaldos”, which
are Venezuelan carols accompanied
by the typical
Venezuelan instrument, the
“cuatro”, akin to the ukulele.
No “Happy Holidays” or
Hallacas is the
traditional Venezuelan
Christmas dish, here
seen before being
wrapped in cornmeal
and plantain leaves
for cooking
o b s c u ring the origin of
C h r i s t m a s .
Maybe all this nostalgia
is why my eyes grew misty
when I recently re-d i s c o vered
a Venezuelan carol on
youtube: “Vámonos pastores,
vamos a Belén, a ver
a Maria y al niño también”
(Shepherds hence to Bethlehem,
to see Mary and the
C h i l d ).