Christmas has to be way of life itself. It’s a spirit, more than anything else,
a truth of faith that is supposed to animate every cell and pore of our being.
It’s the marvellous reality that whoever and however we are in this earthly
life, we are actually with Christ, conformed to him, formally or informally,
regardless of whether we acknowledge it or not.
That’s why Christmas always evokes joy and peace. Amid the ruins left by the
natural calamities and the even bigger man-made disasters due to our pride and
attachments that cause a Yolanda of partisan anger and hatred, a storm surge of
collective cruelty and insensitivity among ourselves, the spirit of Christmas
is what we need most urgently.
The radical objective reality about ourselves is that we have been created by
God in his image and likeness, through the Son who later on became man to
re-create us after we have fallen into sin and left alienated from God.
Christ is the very pattern of our being. If we want to know who we really are,
how we ought to be, we should not look for references other than Christ
himself. And Christ is not some distant, frozen model or idea that we strive to
follow.
He is alive, and he is in us, he wants to be with us always, he identifies
himself with us whatever our situation may be and shows us how to live that
situation. This is what Christmas is all about. It’s Christ knocking at our
heart’s door, asking to come in, to be born in us and to live with us.
We have to be more aware of this reality of Christmas.
More than that, we have to learn to step into that reality and live it as best
as we could, locking ourselves in it always as much as possible and actively
corresponding to it with all the might that we have.
Let’s learn the many precious lessons of Christmas.
Christ born in a manger, Christ who is God emptying himself to become man and
to suffer all the inhumanity of man, etc.—he shows us how to live in this life.
We have to learn how to be simple and humble. These
traits are never a sign of weakness. On the contrary, they are a sure path to
our objective and original greatness that we lost but was recovered and
enhanced for us through Christ.
This is the truth that we should relish together with
whatever ham, cheese, beer and lechon we will be having this Christmas. That’s
why the celebration of Christmas should have an eminently theological
character, going beyond the social and sentimental.
We need to input the truths of faith to the merely
natural and human elements of the festivity that always have a way, given our
weakened condition, to intoxicate and desensitize us to the greater wonders of
our life.
This Christmas, let’s take account of the challenges of
our times. There are many disturbing developments that we need to face always
with the spirit of Christmas. That would be the spirit of truth given in
charity and causing joy everywhere.
At the moment, I can think of how many young people today
are trivializing the sacredness of marriage and sex. Reports are rampant of
what are called hook-up relations, the proliferation of the so-called selfie
culture that promotes egoism and vanity.
In the area of politics, we now have so much inhuman
partisanship that the different characters involved are now into red-hot
acrimony and bashing. There is now fanaticism in the mainstream. It’s the new
normal, as if basic courtesy and giving others the benefit of the doubt should
be shot down on sight.
We are getting farther away from the true spirit of
Christmas. And the irony of it all is that we like to flaunt our Christmas
greetings and feastings. It has become a Christmas without Christ. Sadder still
is the fact that we don’t seem to realize it. Our ignorance and inconsistency
appear invincible.
But I know there’s always hope. That’s what Christmas
also tells us. God’s ways are like water that through the most difficult
mountains can still manage to pass to the sea.
Let Christmas be everyday!
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