Love is the best way to nurse grieving wounds, says the Bishop of Manchester in his Christmas message
MANCHESTER is an exciting city. It throws itself into Christmas celebrations with energy.
Restaurants and concert venues fill up. Stores and pop-up markets are crowded. A constant run of carol services in the cathedral adds to the atmosphere of hustle and bustle. The city fully lives up to its emblem – the Manchester bee. If you’re looking for a silent night, this isn’t the place to find it.
But it IS the place to find a warm heart. And in the seven months since a terrorist attack murdered 22 and injured many others, that heart has grown ever warmer and larger in its love.
“Love Manchester” has become as central to who we are as the bee. It’s the love people in the city have shown each other ever since news of the blast first came. But it’s more than that.
We have shared our grief, our defiance and our love with those affected by the attacks on Westminster and London Bridge, Finsbury Park Mosque and Barcelona.
We’ve seen the love of the people of Britain and beyond, in their messages and in the millions of pounds raised to support victims of the Manchester attack and others. The light of that love shone with particular strength on the anniversary of the murder of MP Jo Cox.
The events held across the country that weekend provided a national forum for millions to stand up against terror and hate.
We also pulled together as a country after so many lives were lost during the Grenfell Tower fire in West London in June. The love shown since the summer will mean a lot to those still grieving or nursing their wounds this Christmas.
It won’t fill the empty chair or magic the pain away, but it will remind them they are not forgotten.
Christmas is about love – the love of God shown in Jesus. Born in a stable and visited by shepherds, he must have looked as vulnerable as one of their winter lambs. When they saw King Herod’s army sweep down to terrorise the town of Bethlehem and seek Jesus out and kill him, those shepherds must have feared his end had come.
But love is stronger than hate. It won then. It wins today.
And it changes things. In Manchester this summer, it helped us reject revenge and respond to terrorism with defiance.
If they want us to hate each other, we are going to show love instead.
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Part of that defiance is not letting the fear of attack change our lives more than it must.
We can honour victims while still going out and enjoying ourselves. That’s what the people of Manchester did in the days after the blast and it’s what they have been doing ever since.
Wherever you are this Christmas, my hope and prayer is that you too will find something to enjoy and to celebrate. And remember the love that makes it all worthwhile.