Friends of Padre Steve’s World
Well it is almost Christmas, in fact in less than a week that day will be upon us. However this Christmas, like nearly every other that has come before will be marked by war, inhumanity, tyranny and terrorism. In many places there will be no peace on earth, or good will toward men, nor for that matter women or children.
That being said I do think that if people of good will had their way that wars could cease. That may sound naive but there was a time that it almost happened, in a place of such great carnage that just months before people could not imagine.
It was the Christmas 1914 on the Western Front and already during the Battle of the Frontiers, the Marne and Ypres nearly a half million French, British, Belgian and German soldiers had been killed or wounded. In the east Serbia, Austria-Hungary, Germany and Russia were engaged in battles consuming the lives of men at rates hitherto unimaginable.
But in the midst of that carnage peace began to break out. It was the Christmas Truce of 1914.
I wrote this last year and did some editing and made some other changes to include adding links to scenes from the film Joyeux Noel.
In the hope of peace on earth,
Padre Steve+
“Tonight, these men were drawn to that altar like it was a fire in the middle of winter. Even those who aren’t devout came to warm themselves.” Chaplain Palmer Joyeux Noël
The war was supposed to be over by Christmas, or so the planners had said. Instead after a series of massive battles that produced unprecedented number of casualties the war settled into a stalemate. As the sides exhausted themselves in a series of meeting engagements throwing the flower of their idealistic youth into the great maw of the front to be torn apart by massed artillery and machine gun fire the planners sought new ways to find military victory.
In December 1914 with neither side having the ability to force the issue and casualties already running over a million dead and wounded the armies dug in. Massive trench networks were constructed in the mud of France and Belgium as the…
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The Inglorius Padre Steve's World 