Where is the centre of the universe? -Nov 24, 2004

As I write these lines the taking of Fallujah is complete at the cost of more than 60,000 casualties. No one knows how many civilians have lost their lives.

Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein saw a family of five shot dead by a US helicopter. The invasion of Iraq continues the century-long history of war and violence which began with the genocide against Armenia. The 20th century witnessed the death of 182 million people, the vast majority victims of wars among christian nations.

Iraq is the 20th country invaded by the US since 1945. Its people is victim of an imperial struggle for the control of oil, a commodity which everyday becomes more scarce and precious. Its oil is equivalent to two or two and a half times what Britain has in the North Sea. Britain's supply is peaking and will begin to peter out. The United States consumes 20 million barrels of oil per day. It produces 5 million barrels domestically. The rest it must import. It is essential that the great centres of power have access to that precious supply of black gold.

The nearness of Christmas permits us to remember again that our God is a being whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere. There are imperial powers who believe themselves to be the centre of the universe. History is full of their rise and fall.

Nineveh was a great centre. It is called Baghdad today. There God sent the reluctant prophet Jonah and with great success, success which Jonah hated having. Athens was once a centre of world culture. No less an apostle than St Paul went to tackle it for Christ but made no impact. Rome followed and became the Eternal City though its temporal history was at times marked by a murky mediaeval papacy which fancied itself the only true voice of God.

Humanity used to believe that it was the centre of the universe until Copernicus and Galileo came along. Man used to believe that he was the centre of the universe until the women's movement moved from rocking the cradle to shaking the foundations. And, to be honest, are we not the centres of our own little universes?

So where is today's centre of the universe? Is it the City of London, the world's largest financial market? Is it New York with its Wall Street, Nasdaq and the United Nations? Is it Washington with the White House, the Pentagon, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Trade Organisation etc? Is it Shanghai which has already hosted its first global economic summit?

The BBC and CNN and Sky are writing the headlines which later on will be the chapter headings of books written by historians, economists, sociologists and even theologians. But who will write the story of even one of those 60,000 who today will die of hunger? Who will write the story of even one of those who this very minute has contracted hiv/aids? Who will write the story of the teenage girl from the Ukraine whose body has been bought and sold first in the Ukraine, then in Albania, then in Italy, then in France and now here ? Who will write those stories?

The story of Joseph and Mary is an everyday occurrence in societies wracked by poverty. Two young people, not yet married, looking for a safe refuge to bring a child into the world. Instead of safety they find a shelter for animals and, warmed by the animals' breath and body heat, the young pair all alone deliver their first child.

Like all human stories, it gets better in the retelling because the people involved are very special. Through that couple God emptied himself of the infinite godhead and took on servanthood as a human being with all the fragility, frailty and fragmentation which afflict our common humanity. For company they had the angels, the shepherds and three stargazers from the East. Mary's Magnificat song hits its highest pitch and Joseph's awestruck silence its deepest note.

Who could believe a wonderful story like that, full of myth and magic? God, fully human fully divine, born of a young teenage girl in an animal shelter, becomes Emmanuel. Through him, with him and in him the whole cosmos reaches its fulfilment, peace and unity. Glory to God in the Highest. He is Prince of Peace and Lord of History.

Bush, Blair and Sharon believe they are the centre of the universe. They are powerful and arrogant in their power. They preside over a world on the brink of catastrophe. A century ago William Butler Yeats wrote a prophetic poem called, "The Second Coming". He wrote:

"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity. "

Your story and my story are somehow caught up in the web of God's mystery. We did not choose. God chose us so that our joy would be full. The Christmas joy, festivity and gifting are all to remind us of a deeper graced reality weaving in secret our human history.

Yeats writes:
"Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand."

And we read in the Book of Revelation:
"As I stood on the seashore I saw a beast rising out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on its horns. On each head was a blasphemous title challenging God....People prostrated themselves before the beast, saying, 'Who is like the beast? Who can oppose it?' ".(Rev 13.1-2)

Archbishop Oscar Romero, whose 25th anniversary occurs next March, opposed it from his cathedral in San Salvador(Holy Saviour). He confronted and called on the imperial power not to supply any more arms to the violent Salvadorian military regime. His assassins had trained in the US School of the Americas(school of assassins). They hired a gun and during the celebration of the Eucharist he murdered St Oscar. They paid the gunman 9,000 dollars. Within 24 hours his body was dumped from a military helicopter into the sea.

Oscar Romero was an early martyr of a faith which does justice, which defends the sacred rights of the poor and which speaks a prophetic word because the sufferings of the poor are an insult to the holiness of God. St Oscar stood up to the beast. He paid with his life, but as he himself promised, he has risen again to be with his people.

It is a shocking truth that you and I live in the belly of the beast. We live in the "over" world. We overeat and become obese. We overshop and become oniomaniacs. We consume over 80% of the world's resources. What abysmal emptiness are we trying to cover up by filling ourselves with food and things in the way we do? What have we done to create the consumerist culture that we live by?

Christ has come to lead us to the Reign of the Father. It is a Reign already here, in the secret depths of our hearts and a Reign still to come. It is a Reign of Peace--God's blessing and fullness; of Justice--right relationship with our sisters and brothers and with God; of Wholiness--transfiguration by the Risen Christ, life in abundance.

But we are in an apocalyptic struggle against the gods Mammon and Moloch. On their altars everyday die in holocaust 60,000 hungry, innocent people in Palestine and Iraq (soldiers too) and thousands of victims of AIDS. The wealth of only a handful of billionaires equals the assets of the poorest 40% of the planet. The imperial power will employ its hard power to impose its will, its "full spectrum domination"(Pentagonspeak) in any part of the planet. It will use its soft power: its films, its news agencies, its fast food, its lifestyle, its exchange programmes, its brandnames to seduce, to entice, to deceive.

Maybe the centre of the universe, the centre that will hold, is to be found in Bethlehem. There a poor humanity gave birth to Christ, the New Humanity. He was born of a virgin, a faithful listener of the Word of God which took flesh in her empty womb thereby filling us all. Everyday of her pregnancy she could say "This is my Body". We too are the Body of Christ. There is a Son/Daughter of God waiting to be born in each one of us, a Body given for the life of the world. Do we dare take that tremendous truth about ourselves on board, to confide in it, to create a different culture and a different society, to celebrate it?

You will find Bethlehem deep in your heart. What is your fondest desire for the world? What is your grandest dream? There is your Bethlehem, the centre that will hold.

Frank Regan ssc