My dear Friends, brothers and sisters,

The year 1999, dedicated to God the Father, has turned out to be a painful year for His Children in the diocese of Torit: murderous bombardments of defenceless civilians, quarrels between SPLA soldiers and the people of Chukudum, conflicts between villages.
Many innocents civilians lost their lives; others are hiding in caves or in the forest; others again have fled to Kenya or Uganda and have become refugees. As your pastor, I fled the pain of each and all.
The first six months of the year were spent trying to reconcile the Father’s Children amond themselves. Today, I express my gratitude to the SPLA/M leadership, the New Sudan Council of Churches, as well as to NGOs and OLS members who assisted in the resolution of conflicts and in relieving misery.
Amidst those sombre events came the light of a great joy : the ordination to the episcopacy of a son of the diocese, Auxiliary Bishop Akio Johnson Mutek. May the Father be blessed fro the great gift to the People of God in Torit.
In September, it was my turn to benefit from God’s kindness. I came to Jerusalem, to attend a three months session of biblical and spiritual renewal. There are six of us, from the Sudan, here at St Ann’s, including Fr Elias and Father Le Vacher. You are never far from us. Constantly, wed keep you in our prayers, and we take every available opportunity to let other people know of your trials and of you perseverance in adversity.
While in the Holy Land, I walked in the footsteps of Jesus, slept where he slept, saw the mountains, deserts and rivers that He saw… and I identify with Him as much as God’s grace would allow me to.

I often walked to the Garden of Gethsemane nearby : and in prayer, I remembered how Jesus, in the dark of night, accepted to do the will of His Father, whatever the cost to Himself. From Gethsemane I would climb the Mount of Olives, where He used to teach His disciples the secrets of the Kingdom…. And I listened to His voice. On other occasions, I followed the via Dolorosa and went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the greatest of all shrines, which covers both the Calvary and the tomb where the body of Jesus was laid. What did I learn from the Way of the Cross, from the Resurrection and from the apparitions to His Mother, to Mary Magdalene and to the Apostles? That the divine love flew from the wounded heart of Christ, on the Cross. That His love never hurts and never resents being hurt. That He understands human weakness and is ever ready to forgive. That conflicts which cause death can be resolved by reconciliation which brings life. That working for peace is futile if we forget that peace is first of a gift to be gratefully received from the Risen Lord.

Peace. We have remarked here that the religions have not yet succeeded in bringing peace. Polities, economies, manipulations, greed and lust push people to fight, hate, kill, steal each other….In the Holy Land, it seems that the Moslem and the Christian are somehow united, for the good purpose of peaceful coexistence.
Could we not search for union? Could we not look at working together for a better future for all? We have seen such an example : At a special “Village of Peace”, where Jews, Palestinian Moslem and Christian live, study, work have rest together. What an attractive example of collaboration, of respect of the others! What a joy, harmony, peace! Another example of peaceful life and work together is the Palestinian University of Bethlehem.
We ask and entreat again the tribes, the villages, the families, the groups of the Southern Sudan to collaborate, to love each other, to not raid each other, never kill each other! We ask you to forgive and to reconcile, to unite and to work together, to be as good brothers and sisters. Let us dream of forgiveness and of reconciliation between us, Southerners, united at last. And about our bothers and sisters of the Moslem North? In which conditions? There must be a way to stop the war, the mistrust, the violence. There must be a way of solving peacefully our many real problems. A change of heart would help us to start moving towards peace.
God surely helps us to find solutions. We pray God to give peace….and it is good. Now, we need to do something ourselves, to “Make Peace”, to work fro Peace, to make some steps towards Peace. We need Justice inside us, between us, between us and our neighbours (See Resolutions of SCBC, Nairobi 24.08.1999).

Conclusion. May this Christmas message, written from the Holy Land, touch in you the deep Peace which Jesus came to give each of us, to experience as “Holy Ground” our particular place on earth. Please know, you and your intentions have been with we in my and our hearts, in our prayer all along the way.
This Christmas, the whole world begins the celebration of the 2000th Birthday of Jesus Christ. It is, indeed, the beginning of a new Millennium, a Jubilee Year! In the Scriptures, a Jubilee Year gives us here on earth a taste of heaven: where every person is respected and can live in freedom and peace, where we readily give and receive forgiveness, where weapons of war turned into ploughshares, and everyone has a home and enough to eat. The spirit of the Jubilee unties us, unburdens us, makes us a sharing people, creating true justice that reflects a fidelity in all our relationships – seeing every person as our sister or our brother.

Please pray that this spirit of Jubilee may become a reality for the People of the Sudan! Pray with deep gratitude that the Great Love of God has found a home in you! In God’s Gracious Peace.

+ Paride Taban
Bishop of Torit (Sudan)