Magyar Egyház, 1990 (69. évfolyam, 3-6. szám)
1990-11-01 / 6. szám
MAGYAR EGYHÁZ 9. oldal THE BISHOP'S CHRISTMAS GREETINGS Sin cannot win! The sin of disobedience of Adam and Eve could not win. The sin of breaking the covenant between God and His people so many times by the people’s faithlessness could not win because again and again God gave new chances by renewing the covenant. So many times it looked like sin would win but God never lost His patience. A prophet of old then envisioned that God’s liberating truth would appear in a child. God, at last, fulfilled this prophecy with the birth of the child of Bethlehem. Through His angel God called the child “a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” The Child’s future, however, was still left open to the attacks of sin. Nevertheless the assaults could not win after all. King Herod’s murderous plan could not win — the Child lived. As the Child grew up God’s liberating design matured in his mind only to be promptly attacked by the lure of Satan; but again, the Tempter could not win. Jesus, Son of God and Son of Man, through three years with Word and by acts of healing showed the love and truth of God. Countless times he met with the hostility of indifference, of selfishness and of blind hatred, even with the unbelief of men of his closest circle. Yet nothing could shake his determination to proclaim the spiritual renewal of all people to be the only way to the restoration of peace with God. The last attempt of his enemies to destroy his movement was to kill him. But the murderous human act of the crucifixion could not win; it was overcome by the victorious divine act of resurrection. Jesus Christ cannot lose, sin cannot win. This truth has been proven through the centuries, through bloody wars, through poisonous ideologies, through genocidal hatreds, it has been proven against the unpeace between the many nations of the world be it in Africa or in East-Central Europe or anywhere. The power of God Incarnate in the Child of Bethlehem will overcome human sin. By the mercy of God truth still has a chance. This is our invincible hope for the world and also for our Hungarian people on this Christmas of 1990. Andrew Harsanyi, bishop THE VISION OF THE THREE KINGS The dungeon was not cold but the walls were wet and the air was heavy as if the suffering of former prisoners had turned into some tangible substance filling the atmosphere. At unreachable height there was a small barred hole in the seiling letting in just so much air that the prisoners should not suffocate and just so much light that they remember the blue Ligurian sky over the dungeon of Genoa. The prisoners were not gloomy at all. They surrounded a bearded man, in his late thirties, reddish hair, heavy suntan, dreamy look in his eyes as if he would see another world; a smile around his lips expressed contempt for his ill luck. He was Marco Polo, gentleman commander of a Venetian galley, and the year was 1298 of our Lord. The wheels of fortune turned fast under the Italian sky and sometimes they stopped at the wrong point. So it happened now and in the course of a lost battle Marco Polo was taken prisoner by the Genoese. Marco Polo, however, was not in despair. He met greater dangers and took greater chances on his journeys in the Far East, in the Great Tartar Khan’s court, on the stormy Indian Ocean when eight out of ten of his company perished during the trip to Persia. Here, in the prison of Genoa, it was only a matter of time until news of the lost sea battle would reach Venice and ransom would be put up for his freedom. Until then time will pass fast. The other prisoners, all soldiers like Marco Polo, pressed him to tell stories about those distant lands and people: about the huge desert, about mysterious Tibet, about the beautiful island in the Idian Ocean, about the enormous statues of Buddha, about the magnificent court of the Khan and about the Great Wall, the wonder of China. And Marco Polo told them stories, horrible ones and tender ones, stories of battles and of love affairs, stories of unsurpassable splendor and of dire poverty. Although dead tired at the end of the day but his companions would press him on to tell one more story. “All right, I shall tell you about the beautiful Chinese princess and her great love, just like she would tell it.” The story’s melodious words would flow from Marco Polo’s lips in smooth Chinese rocking his fellow-prisoners into sleep. One of the fellow-prisoners, the restless Rusticiano from Pisa, never looked at Marco Polo when he was speaking. With what he was able to get from the jailers by bribing them, some ink, some paint on fragments of parchment Rusticiano would make notes of Marco Polo’s stories. He wanted to write a book on the travels of the Venetian. And then the night of Christmas arrived. Through the hole on the dungeon’s ceiling the prisoners saw a star. It’s like the star of Bethlehem, the prisoners mused; but they did not speak. Nor did Marco Polo. Christmas in a dungeon is no time for colorful stories. But Rusticiano could not stand the silence. “Can’t you tell us a Christmas story, Marco Millioni?” Millioni was Marco’s nickname for his million stories. For quite a while Marco didn’t stir. His thoughts were racing through many years and many lands. Then he was looking up noticing the bright star shining through the dungeon hole. At once he know his Christmas story. “Well, I don’t remember it exactly, it was more than twenty years ago, I was in my teens. We left the Holy Land with a caravan in order to get to Hormusz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf; from there we planned to go to China by sea. You see, Kublai, the Great Khan was interested in Christianity, he must have heard about the heroic Magyar Christians. We figured we could connect our business interests and the spreading of our holy religion. The caravan belonged to my father, Nicolo Polo and his brother Maffeo. They took me along mainly because I was quite keen in foreign languages. “Our journey took us through Persia which used to be a large and noble province in ancient times but now was greatly destroyed by the Tartars. One night we stopped in a
