As I celebrate my birthday few days after Christmas, last year I received a Christmas card on my birthday. It was from one of my friend though it was his mistake yet he justified saying “when you love someone, its Christmas everyday.” It made lot of sense in what he meant because the whole spirit of Christmas is Love. Though the message was right, it was still a mistake to post a wrong card at a wrong time.
The season of Christmas has always fascinated me. Not so much for delicious dishes or colourful presents but for the feelings of warmth and love we receive from our “Babe in the manger”. This is the most beautiful season where God takes initiative to meet man. No other religion speaks about the God coming down to meet at a human level. By this God invites us to part take in his Grace and Love.
The whole festival, like a Christmas pudding, requires a lot of preparation. Above all our hearts requires 180 degree turn from sins and make it a manger for the incarnate love to be born.
Christmas day in many countries is quiet family day. A Finnish family starts preparing for Christmas weeks ahead. A Swedish family goes off to write little messages or poems on the presents they have wrapped for each other. Christmas is the time to tie the broken strings of family in form of knots of love. It’s a family feast.
Today, the commercial trappings of Christmas has made, the focal point of Christ’s decent obscure, crackers mark our X’mas inauguration, Christmas trees glittering with decorations, carols sung and bells are rung at celebrations and life is so busy that in the hussel-bussel of it we forget the real love in incarnation. We arrange our crib but forget to place Christ in it.
Even today Joseph and Mary knock at the door of the inn-keeper and we are the innkeepers chasing them away. At times as youngsters, we are like innkeepers glued to our T.V. and internet, that there is no place for Jesus in our homes. Joseph and Mary still knock….. Won’t you open up your heart? We cannot live a self-centered life as if the star of first Christmas night is not yet shone on us.
The birth of Christ was hailed by angles as ‘Prince of Peace’. And indeed he was a prince of peace. Today the very roads which Jesus trod in Jerusalem are used for trucks of armed forces, artilleries and bloodsheds. On one side we sing Jingle Bell, other side destroys with bombs and shells. Babe in the manger was peaceful, but today babies are born only to die or to experience nightmares.
Peace and harmony sometimes appears to be a distant dream. But my dear young friends it is possible. It should begin with me. Let us pause for a while in our busy schedules and think of some concrete ways to make this Christmas a meaningful one. One way I can imagine our Christmas will have more significance if we set our buffet table for one extra person; for the arrival of Baby Jesus and welcome him in a form of a lonely person or a less privileged one. May our minds not only attract us to Nativity statues but living families which are less fortunate. May our hearts pour out for the neglected ones for whom a Christmas is just another lonely day.
- Fr. Olavo Caiado
Regional Chaplain, Goa