JAKARTA - Jakarta Archbishop Ignatius Cardinal Suharyo invites Christians to be more concerned and love for the country to observe the nation's challenges ahead in order to interpret Christmas celebrations.
"We are called to the spirit of Christmas to care for, develop the character of a noble nation, care and love for the country in all its breadth and depth of meaning," said Ignatius Cardinal Suharyo, quoted from Antara, Sunday, December 25.
According to him, the Christmas celebration should give meaning to people's lives to observe the challenges of the nation.
He explained that a number of challenges from the nation include cases of human trafficking which are one of the same major crimes as drugs and the illicit arms trade.
In addition, every year, he said, food waste in Indonesia, if calculated, is estimated at IDR 330 trillion.
On the other hand, there are still many people in the country who have not been able to meet their basic needs, namely food needs.
Not to mention, he continued, along with the increasing use of social media, 62 percent of them contain hate speech, including those related to ethnicity, religion, race and intergroup (SARA) which injures the ideals of building the Indonesian nation.
He also mentioned that there are approximately 800 thousand sites that spread fake news that hinder the ideals of building a just and civilized humanity.
"This year we celebrate Christmas in context, including (the challenge), this year's Christmas celebration must encourage us to collect marks, such as when the Majus, 'go home on other roads'," he added to the congregation at the Pontifical Mass.
The Christmas theme this year is "go home to their country on another path" as well as a Christmas message for the Indonesian Church Mayor Conference and the Communion of Church Churches in Indonesia.
The Archdiocese of Jakarta explains that another "other path" can be understood spiritually, namely after meeting Jesus, people do not live life in the old way but in a new way to become new humans so that Christmas invites people to find new and creative ways.
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