Sir, - I wish to reply to your excellent report on Bethlehem's lack of pilgrims (The Irish Times, December 19th) and your shot of one solitary stranger outside the Manger. You know, it's not by excavating the cave of Bethlehem or analysing King Herod that you find the "Little Lord Jesus".
Nobody - and I mean nobody - was present at the first Christmas birth, for God sent out no invitations to His Son's birthday party. Shocking news! Not alone have we sanitised, but we have "Santa-ised" Christmas. The real, absolute truth of Bethlehem has been given "to the birds".
Feminists should mull over this. The only presence, the only indicator, the only sign in the run-up to the birthing in Bethlehem was the silent heartbeat of a little baby under the heart of a virgin - the Virgin of Nazareth. It was God's best-kept secret, God Himself honouring woman.
Take a bow, God. So, if you lack the heart of a virgin, you're only a turkey looking forward to Christmas. It does not matter if Arafat's Bethlehem is a Gaza stripped of pilgrims, for it's not the grotto that matters but your heart. Look to the heart, not the hearth - you will find only a stuffed old Santa up the chimney.
As Brooks the singer says, "it does not matter how many Bethlehems there are, if the Christmas Child is not born in thee" - otherwise, Bethlehem becomes a place of violence and hatred. Martin Luther says the same: "Your heart must become a bed for the Babe of Bethlehem - He must be embedded there."
I am sure these seasonal thoughts will not put your readers off their Christmas dinners. Holy Christmas, everyone. May you find empty Bethlehems but stacks of straw in your hearts this Christmas.
By the way, wear a Virginheart. Papini, in his Life of Christ, says: "This old world of ours is nothing but a stable and it's full of braying asses." - Yours, etc.,
Rev Raymond A. Hannon, Farnham Drive, Finglas South, Dublin 11.