NEW YORK — “Why do people go to church on Christmas?” It was one of the questions passersby asked in conversation as they noticed the security line before midnight Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Christmas Eve. There were some colorful things said, as well, as you might imagine after 10 p.m. on a Saturday night in the Big Apple. And there were also some people mistaking the crowd on Madison Avenue as a very long line for the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. But the scene did provide an opportunity for solidarity with those whose lives are at risk simply for what they believe.

How many of us gave thought on Christmas Day to those who died in the attack on a Coptic cathedral in Cairo only days before? As we were moved by the deaths of Carrie Fisher, Debbie Reynolds, George Michael, Prince and other celebrities who died in 2016, how many of us remembered Father Jacques Hamel, who was murdered by Islamic militants earlier this year while celebrating Mass in France?

Saying a prayer or keeping the persecuted in mind may not seem like much. But it means something to people living a world away from our Western lives, who do often feel forgotten by the cultural and political leaders and power brokers.

“The Middle East needs Jesus Christ. And no one else could give the Middle East Jesus Christ except the Christians” Archbishop Bashar Matti Warda

Earlier this fall, Archbishop Bashar Matti Warda, from the Archdiocese of Erbil in Iraq, visited St. Patrick’s to talk about peace. His was not a political manifesto about what the United Nations or next White House needed to do, but an eyewitness account of terror. He explained that “to be persecuted is the fate of the Church of the East.

“But to be forgotten,” he added, “this would be a really very painful, painful moment to realize that nobody remembers you.”

And so instead of pointing out U.S. policies that may have exacerbated the pain of his people, or calling Americans out on our routine indifference, he was thankful. “We’ve been blessed. Persecuted, but blessed that we were not been forgotten. We have not been forgotten, because we have so many brothers and sisters, blessed and beloved, wonderful people like you, praying for us.” Warda was particularly grateful that during the Easter season this year, New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan had visited Iraq, bringing added awareness to the plight of the displaced Christians who Warda and the Church labor to build a hopeful future for.

The Middle East Needs Jesus Christ

“Hope is not a concept to be understood,” the archbishop explained to me over the summer when I had the opportunity to spend time with him. “It’s a way of life … live it today. We want to change the future, it starts now.” Back in Erbil, he’s opened a new university that equips people to do just this. There are certainly options for those who want to help — professors who might want to consider teaching there, and Westerners who might want to support efforts to keep a Christian community in what we often think of as the Islamic world. But all Warda really asks of most of us is that we do not forget Christians in the Middle East and that we pray that “our people will go back again to rebuild our villages and stay and be bridges of peace.

“Please,” he said from the altar of St. Patrick’s, “do not forget your brothers and sisters who’ve been persecuted for their faith, for their belief in Jesus Christ all over the world, especially in Iraq and Syria.” And “tell our story,” he said.

When I asked him why it’s so important that Christians remain in Iraq and Syria, given all the risks, he said, “The Middle East needs Jesus Christ. And no one else could give the Middle East Jesus Christ except the Christians … In the midst of all this violence, Jesus is needed.”

I thought of that as Cardinal Dolan put the statue of the Christ child in the manger just as Mass was to begin at midnight. That humble presence of God in the world that Christmas symbolizes is also Christianity at its most powerful. Archbishop Warda knows that. His people who chose their faith over home and worldly security know that. In a city that required a bomb squad for Midnight Mass during a year that saw so much anger and violence in American city streets, do we know it?

Kathryn Jean Lopez is senior fellow at the National Review Institute, editor-at-large of National Review Online and founding director of Catholic Voices USA. She can be contacted at [email protected].

Copyright 2016 United Feature Syndicate