Brandon Scott
Archbishop Eamon Martin at the Synod of Bishops on young people in Rome in 2018. Pope Francis has put synodality at the heart of his papacy. Photo: CNS The Archbishops of Armagh have called for all Christians to embrace “the light that has the last word and not darkness” and to pass on this light amid “life’s obscurity, complications, and suffering” in their joint Christmas message.
Catholic Archbishop of Armagh Eamon Martin and Anglican Archbishop of Armagh John McDowell wrote collaboratively:
“The Christmas story as we will encounter it at Midnight worship on Christmas Eve, or on Christmas morning, will include the words ‘…and the light shines in darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it’.
“And the outcome is that the Father’s love follows Jesus into the darkness of the world and that light has the last word and not darkness. And that for all of life’s obscurity and complications and suffering, that Jesus Christ and his love for the cosmos is the foregone conclusion of all things.
“At Christmas time we should never forget that this same light guides our feet ‘into the way of peace’. Our responsibility is to pass it on, as if to say in the words of 1 John 1:5 ‘This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him is no darkness’”.