A light shines in the darkness.

THE BRILLIANT LIGHT COMES from a source that no one and nothing can extinguish. "The people who walk in darkness have, seen, a great light. A light has dawned on those who live in the land of the shadow of death (Isa. 9:2). The Congolese artist Joseph Mulamba-Mandangi still experiences that reality in the shadow of death today. The darkness in which the people of Congo (formerly known as Zaire) live seems overwhelming: a nightmare of violence, corruption, civil war, economic exploitation--dark times without the prospect of the light of a dawning day.

But Christians--the painter among them--know that since this night the light has been shining in the darkness. Through this light, which is the life of the people, the power of darkness has been broken. In Mulamba-Mandangi's painting the newborn Jesus looks at us with encouragement, with a challenge. He has the power to continue and to complete--in Africa and all over the world--what began with his birth in Bethlehem, with all and through all who believe in him. This is the Christmas promise for the church at the beginning of the third millennium.

@missio, Aachen, Germany. Excerpted with permission from Gott kommt zur ganzen Welt, published by mission, an international Catholic mission organization (translated by Meinrad Scherer-Emunds). Painting: Nativity, by Joseph Mulamba-Mandangi (Congo).