I was very saddened and wounded to read of the young child Sara Sharif in the news, whose father and step-mother were found guilty of her murder this week. Many questions are being asked about this case, such as how her were parents able to hide her injuries from social workers and teachers for so long, or how she was able to be home-schooled with no checks when it was known that she was a child at-risk. These are all valid questions that must be fully investigated. But it seems to me that there is one underlying question that nobody is asking: how can a father reach the point of beating and torturing his own child until the point of death? This is something so unimaginable on a human level that it is difficult to know how to look at it.

Thinking about this, I was reminded of the words of Italo Calvino quoted on the CL Christmas poster “Hell is already here.” Evil is present in the world, not only in far-off places of war, but in our own country, on our own doorsteps, and yes, even within me. A true gaze on our humanity cannot deny the presence of something that goes against our original nature. In front of this evil I have two possibilities, as Calvino continues, to “accept hell and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it”, in other words to accept that evil exists and there is nothing I can do about it, or to “seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of hell, are not hell, then make them endure, give them space.”

“Who and what, in the midst of hell, are not hell.” Christmas is the announcement that this has happened, through the birth of another child 2000 years ago. As Fr. Giussani writes “Destiny, our Destiny, has made itself a Presence … an unexpected companion along the way.” Those who encountered this presence experienced that evil was not the last word on their life. This was true of the woman caught in adultery, of Zaccheus and of many more, who saw through His gaze an embrace of mercy that defeated even the worst evil. And only if I can experience this gaze now can I stay in front of my own evil and the evil that surrounds me, not suffering it, but with a certainty that evil does not have the last word; does not have the last word even on the life of Sara. As Fr. Giussani said “The Mystery as mercy remains the last word even on all the awful possibilities of history.” This is the hope that Christmas brings and the hope that all those who have been touched by this gaze can bring to the world.

Amos, London