क्रिस्मस स्टार - ख्रीस्तजयन्ति का तारा

 क्रिस्मस  स्टार - ख्रीस्तजयन्ति का तारा 

क्रिसमस ईसा मसीह याने जीज़स क्राइस्ट के जन्मदिवस के रूप में दिसंबर २५ के दिन विश्वभर में मनाया जाता है|  और ईसा मसीह को ईसाई धर्म के लोग परमेश्वर का इस पृथ्वी पर स्थल और काल की सीमाओं में अवतरित मानव रूप या इश्वर का पुत्र मानते हैं | 

क्रिसमस से जुडी हुई सजावटों में एक तारा अधिकतर देखने को मिलता है| कुछ साल पहले तक इस  पर्व की तैय्यारी और सजावट में तारा ही मुख्य था |  किन्तु आजकल  अनेक अन्य (अनेकानेक) सजावट की वस्तुएं इस त्यौहार को अलंकृत करती पाई जाती हैं। 

क्रिसमस स्टार के पीछे एक घटना या कहानी बतायी जाती है |  पूर्व देश में, कुछ राजपुरुष माने जाने वाले श्रेष्ठ व्यक्तियों ने एक अनोखा तारा देखा| 

आजकल ख्रिस्ती परम्परा में इन्हें ज्योतिषी या श्रेष्ठ ज्ञानी भी कहते हैं, जो संभवत: मेसोपोटेमिया प्रदेश (वर्तमान इराक़) के थे जहाँ उसे समय इस ज्योतिष विज्ञान का बोलबाला था|  उन्होंने उस अलौकिक तारे को देखते ही पहचान लिया कि यह एक महान व्यक्ति  या एक महान राजा के जन्म का द्योतक है |  उनको लगा कि वह तारा निश्चल नहीं, बल्कि आगे बढ़ रहा है और उसके पीछे हो जाने के लिए उन्हें आमंत्रित करता है‌और वे  मंत्र मुग्ध होकर उस तारे के पीछे हो लिए। उन्होंने अपनी स्थिति के अनुसार इस अवतरित मनीषी के लिए कुछ भेंट जैसे सोना, मूर और लोबान भी अपने साथ ले लीं -  तारा आगे चलता रहा, और वे पीछे हो लिये |  उनकी ज्योतिषीय गणना के अनुसार उनको लगा कि यह शिशु फलस्तीन में कहीं है, और तारे के फलस्तीन पहुँचते‌ ही यह समझकर कि ऐसा जन्म एक राजकीय महल में ही हो सकता है‌ उन्होने वहाँ के राजा हेरोद के पास जाकर उनसे मालुम किया कि यहूदी वंश में जन्म लेने वाला वह नया राजा कहाँ हो सकता है  -  लेकिन यह ज्ञात होने पर राजा हेरोद चिंतित हो गया और उसने अपने धार्मिक और अन्य सलाहकारों से शिशु जन्म की घटना के विषय में परामर्श लिया | उन्होंने धर्म ग्रन्थ उल्लिखित इस घटना से मिलती हुई कुछ बातें राजा को बतायीं कि यहूदिया के बेथलेहम नगर में, जो कि राजा दाऊद का शहर है, वहीँ ऐसे किसी महान राजा  के जन्म होने की भविष्य वाणी की गयी है|  यह सुनकर वह तो विचलित हो गया किंतु स्वयं को संतुलित एवं संयमित कर लिया‌‌ और ज्ञानियों से जाकर कहा-तुम लोग जाकर बेथलेहम में उस शिशु की खोज करो, उसका आदर सम्मान करो, और फिर आकर मुझको इसकी सूचना दो, ताकि मैं भी उस दिव्या बालक का आदर सम्मान कर सकूँ |  

यह निर्देश पाकर जब वे ज्ञानी लोग राजमहल से बाहर निकले तो उन्हें वह अनोखा तारा फिर दिखाई दिया‌ और वे उसके पीछे चल पड़े | बेथलेहम की एक गोशाले के ऊपर वह स्थिर हो गया, और तभी वहाँ ज्ञानियों ने नवजात शिशु ईसा को अपनी माता मरियम और पिता यूसुफ के साथ एक चरनी में लेटा  हुआ  पाया | उन्होंने ईसा की अलौकिकता और महत्त्व को पहचाना।‌ उन ज्ञानी पुरुषों ने अपने साथ लाई हुई अपनी भेंटें उसे दिव्य शिशु को समर्पित करते हुए उसको प्रणाम किया।  एक दर्शन में राजा हेरोद के इरादों का सन्देश पाकर वे हर्ष भरे मन से दूसरे रास्ते अपने घर लौट‌ गए।

इस प्रकार क्रिसमस स्टार उस तारे का स्मरण दिलाता है जिसने उन ज्ञानियों को बालक येसु तक पहुंचाया | 

आज जब यह स्टार हम देखते हैं, तो हमें यह प्रेरणा लेनी चाहिए कि हम प्रकृति के तत्वों का निरिक्षण करें, उन्हें पहचानें और समझें ताकि हम उनसे परम सत्य, जिसे विभिन्न धर्म विभिन्न नाम से ईश्वर कहते हैं, तक पहुँच सकें|  इसलिए यह अति आवश्यक है कि शिक्षा ऐसी हो कि वह संसार और प्रकृति के निरीक्षण और विश्लेषण से  भौतिक सत्य के साथ साथ, परमार्थ सत्य की ओर भी विद्यार्थियों को, मानवों को, जन-जन को उस क्रिसमस स्टार की तरह ले जा सके।

उन महान ज्ञानियों को जिस प्रकार उसे तारे को देखकर एक शिशु में महानता को पहचानना कठिन नहीं हुआ,  उसी प्रकार क्रिसमस स्टार हर बालक में छिपी हुई महानता और ईश्वरत्व का हमें स्मरण दिलाता है, the God potential  (दैव बनने की मानव क्षमता) की हमें सूचना देता  है|  अतएव, यह तारा बच्चों को  'सावधानी से संभाल'ने ("Handle with Care") की चेतावनी भी देता है |  

इसलिए ख्रीस्त जयंति एक निमंत्रण भी है : इस संसार में आने वाले हर शिशु का स्वागत करने का निमंत्रण | उन सब के जीने के अधिकार (Right to Life) का भी यह त्योहार है | चमकता क्रिसमस स्टार बालकों के संसार में आने की ख़ुशी का प्रतीक है | 

ख्रीस्तजयन्ति की ये भावनायें सब दिलों में हों और ख्रिस्तमस की खुशियाँ सब लोगों को, सभी बच्चों को मिलें, विशेष कर, उन बच्चों को, जो विश्वभर में, कई इलाकों में युद्ध और आतंकवाद से पीड़ित हैं | 

क्रिसमस एक 'गिफ्ट टाइम'-उपहारों का त्यौहार भी माना जाता है|  आपसी सौहार्द और प्रेम स्वरूप उपहारों को बांटने का पर्व।   क्रिसमस की इस सुन्दर प्रथा के पीछे है उन ज्ञानियों का नवजात प्रभु ईसा मसीह को अपनी भेंटें समर्पित करने की घटना | साथ ही ख्रीस्तजयन्ति यह याद दिलाती है कि मानव और इस संसार के प्रति परमेश्वर प्रेम रखता है, उनके प्रति चिंतित है और हमारा जीवन और जीवन के लिए संसार में सुलभ संसाधन इश्वर के सबसे बड़े उपहार हैं|  जब विश्व के राष्ट्र २०२५ सहकारिता का अंतर्राष्ट्रीय वर्ष मनाते हैं, तो पारस्परिक सहयोग और भाईचारे से मानव जीवन और इस पृथ्वी को कायम रखना हमारी तरफ़ से सबसे महत्वपूर्ण  'क्रिसमस गिफ्ट' होगा, उपहार होगा |

क्रिसमस/ख्रीस्तजयंती की हार्दिकशुभकामनाएं

डा. प्रशांत CMI, प्राचार्य, सेक्रेड हार्ट डिग्री कॉलेज, सीतापुर 

Picture of the Star: https://i.pinimg.com/736x/f5/6a/48/f56a48a8f108d138bbe1de78880109b9--christmas-scenes-christmas-.jpg

Martyrdom for Being a Christian - St. Josaphat and the Unity-Uniformity Struggles in Syro-Malabar Church

The last 3 years of mudslinging and washing linen in public on account of purely internal issues - geo-political (read, power related), economic and ritualistic - have made a vibrant church (vibrant as seen in church attendance, organisational cohesion and number of full-time members dedicated for church ministry) a vessel of contempt and a scandal for people of other faiths. 

When the church (Latin) celebrates the martyr St. Josaphat, I am inspired and consoled. Consoled,  because, his story reaffirms that the church, in spite of its idealistic spiritual orientation, in reality, carries with it all the limitations of human beings in time and space. This had been so before - with ups and downs in the spiritual quotient - and continues to be so. 

In the 16th century, we find Josaphat at the centre of an effort at unity through a unification process involving the Catholic church and the Orthodox church of Ukraine. In 1595 Ruthenian Church which was part of the Byzantine church, became reunited with the Catholic church. Josephat, born into the Orthodox church, became part of the Roman church.  He joined the first monastery of the order of St. Basil to be united to the Catholic Church, and was later made the bishop of Polotsk.  Some of the rulers of that region could not relish this, as it threatened their control of the ecclesiastical benefices.  And plotting with the Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, who visited Ukraine in 1621, they stirred up trouble which led to Josaphat being murdered while on a pastoral visit to Vitebsk in the year 1623. 

This befits a Christian bishop, though not the Christians who executed this. Our Syro-Malabar church,  increasingly tending towards zero-Jesus church, appears to have similar situations and machinations taking place within. The Chaldean* plotters and the ecclesiastical political power-brokers fearing the loss of their benefices or striving to hide their wrongs/errors in managing such benefices are an all-out effort to murder the truth.  However, here there appears hardly any potential martyr bishop - because, the wary bishops are wielding the political protective power using the police. While there is hardly any physical threat to these ecclesiastics, they are indeed fearful of such eventualities, and would rather prefer police protection, than martyrdom. 

Inspiration - I hope the model of St. Josaphat inspires them to be pastoral, rather than politically manipulative, and welcome martyrdom, if that comes their way, in that course! 

St. Josephat, pray for us! Pray for our bishops. 

*Never born or introduced to it as a Christian, now I am condemned to be a Chaldean, a Catholic casteism! 

Picture of St Josaphat's Martyrdom: https://thecatholicheroes.com/history-biographies/st-josaphat-the-martyr-of-ecumenism-a-life-of-devotion-and-sacrifice/

Resolving the Syro-Malabar Ritualistic Rift

On one of my rare evening meditations, on the feast St Anthony of Padua, the great preacher and critique of clergy of his times, the gospel presented to me was the death of Jesus.  Mtt 26:47 ff. where I read, 'then Jesus, crying out again with a loud voice, gave up his life (50). And behold, the veil of the temple was torn into two parts, from top to bottom...'(51). 

Isn't this gospel narration of the tearing away of the curtain of the temple signifying the demarcation between the holy of holies from the rest of the temple a pointer to the new phase in God-human, God-world relationship where such separation was not warranted; where God was no longer the punishing unapproachable God who wouldn't let anyone come near him, whose special presence was to be separated by a veil, lest those who approached it - human or animal - would be burnt to death, but rather, a God who dwells amidst people, with God's reign being established here (Lk 17:21)? 

I feel one of the consistent agendas of Jesus was to liberate people from slavery to rituals, but we are here literally being enslaved by ritualism, and behaving in an unchristlike fashion to preserve them or to challenge them.  Psalms (74: 4-11) of today's vespers aptly fit my meditation on Syro-Malabar Church of Ernakulam: 

O God, why have you rejected us forever?
4 Your foes roared in the place where you met with us;

5 They behaved like men wielding axes
    to cut through a thicket of trees.  

6 They smashed all the carved paneling
    with their axes and hatchets.
7 They burned your sanctuary to the ground;
    they defiled the dwelling place of your Name.
 8 They said in their hearts, “We will crush them completely!”
    They burned every place where God was worshipped in the land.    

9 no prophets are left,
    and none of us knows how long this will be.

10 How long will the enemy mock you, God?
    Will the foe revile your name forever?    

11 Why do you hold back your hand, your right hand?    Take it from the folds of your garment and destroy them.  They set up their standards as signs. We are given no signs from God...

Christ must be laughing at the incorrigible human nature which always wants a  'golden calf' to satisfy its aspirations, which in the Catholic Church, especially in the Syro Malabar church, has taken the mould of the elaborate ritual symbolic of the thanksgiving and self-effacing meal Jesus celebrated.  We have succeeded in making it a magical formula with grand narratives being written on the real presence,  and the magnificent and bombastic theories like 'transubstantiation'. 

I hope he repeats his act of cleansing the temple at least once more - whipping these bigoted leaders who perpetuate ritualism and fight over it totally against the spirit of Christ. 'Woe to you for making them twice the sons (or daughters - on this account also there is an effort to maintain gender justice) of hell that you yourselves are for the sake of your traditions?' (Matt 23:15).  (This doesn't imply any hatred towards these leaders - but just a figurative way of presenting a hope of being led in the Christ way, genuinely fearing that the present mode is away from it). 

• Why is this unchristian adherence to the details of the rituals? 
• While rite itself is built on the thesis of diversity, why is another addition to diversity not tolerated? 
• Is the (so-called) apostolic heritage the only valid basis for a valid liturgy? 
• Is it the purpose of the liturgy to lead people to God, and if that is not served, can't new modes be envisaged? 
• Is uniformity in celebration of the Eucharist to be the most distinguishing feature of a Christian community? What about Christ's compassion, forgiveness, inclusiveness, and self-suffering?  If the liturgical outcomes are not on these lines, aren't we treading a faultline? 
• Does a threat of excommunication for not adhering to a norm passed by the majority befit the Church of Christ? 

While the present understanding of God's revelation guides the Church to seek to understand God's presence and revelation through other cultures in dialogue, here, for the sake of establishing uniformity in the ritualistic celebration of the Lord's supper where the authority figure shows himself as the servant and washes the feet, our Church leadership wields the threat of excommunication to those who refuse to adhere to the ritualistic details. 

While till late it was the conventional catholic sentiment of obedience to the Holy Father which was utilised as the tool for bringing in compliance, now that the Holy Father himself has declared that such matters are to be decided at the local church level; and it has been amply proven that there is no such 'untouchability' in the details of the rituals by the drastic editing which took place in the last phase, isn't it the right time to allow flexibilities while mandating that the official version remains what is passed by the Synod? 

It is the scripture which insisted that 'obedience is greater than sacrifice' (I Sam 15:22 ) and it was the Master's example to sacrifice one's self in obedience to God's will (Lk 22:42).  This is indeed laudable and all Christians can arrive at an easy solution by obeying what is decided by the majority of the Synod. 

However, the question still remains about its 'christianness' and the very idea that rituals are the core of our Christian existence and adherence to the rubrics a great Christian virtue, appears totally in contradiction with the spirit of Christ's liberating gospel. 

His insistence that God is to be worshipped in spirit and truth and not necessarily on this mountain or that (Gerizim or Jerusalem - Jn 4:20-24) is amply indicative of his liberal stand towards issues.  This may be juxtaposed with his statement on the faithfulness in small things and that not even an iota of the law will be changed (Mtt 5:17).  But almost in the same breath, he cautions that our 'righteousness should surpass that of the Pharisees' (Mtt 5:20).  The big picture Christ tries to present appears hanging in favour of liberating humans from slavish adherence to ritualistic religion, where all such means should serve to build up the reign of God, not a reign of high handed superiority, suppression of dissenting voices, but a reign of justice, peace and joy in the holy spirit.  It is worth the while to examine if either of the parties, in their fanatical adherence to their version of this means, is contributing towards the larger and primary purpose. 

Can't the leadership facilitate a consensus formula? 

1. The officially recognized form of celebration of the Syro-Malabar mass will be the one approved by the Synod. 

2. Where there are strong sentiments against the new format, especially regarding the aspect of where the celebrant should face - the people or the altar - freedom be given to the local community to discuss and decide on the basis of a majority (preferably, consensus) decision to have regular masses in the parish ad populum or ad orientam

3. In any case, the mass considered to be the Sunday Mass be celebrated in the approved form of the Synod. 

4. It would be good that the Eucharistic celebration as part of Sunday Catechesis of the Young be also celebrated in this fashion. 

I hope by now the more involved and intelligent members of the Church might have put forward similar or better solutions before all concerned. I wish I were given an audience by the new Major Arch Bishop.  I would definitely make an effort this time, hoping to share these views as a concerned member and ordained minister of the Church.