Lessons from Christmas
Merry Christmas to everyone! As the holiday rush and merriment of our Christmas celebration begins to subside, let us now take the time to pause and reflect on what this season really teaches us. Allow me to share with you the reflection I learned during one of the Simbang Gabi presided by Rev. Fr. Paschal Ma. R. Gorgoña, the parish priest of San Roque de Pasay.
During the liturgical celebration, Fr. Paschal emphasized that our celebration of the Birth of Christ … the word made flesh; can bring forth three important lessons which he summarized using the three (3) R’s of Christmas … R-elationship, R-ejection and R-econciliation.
In RELATIONSHIP, Fr. Paschal explained that Christmas highlights the Relationship of God and Man, when God chose to share in our common humanity. IMMANUEL … God is with us. With the birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem, Immanuel, “God with Us,” takes on a whole new meaning. For in the person of baby Jesus, God is “with us” not merely to bless us. Nor is He with us in the sense that He is going to simply work through Jesus to help us, protect us, and guides us. The little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay is “God with us” because not only must Jesus totally identify with us — except for not rebelling in sin — but He must also make a way to offer that reconciliation to all by being human flesh and blood.
Why does the human race need “God to be with us?” Because the human race is slowly sinking into forgetfulness. Only Jesus can undo what we have done. Only the One who created us in the first place can restore us again. Only our Creator can break down the wall of sin that separates His creatures from Him. Only He can give their lives the meaning and completeness they were supposed to have. Only “God with us” can rescue us from the forgetfulness that we are heading towards brought about by our materialism and relative mindedness.
During the first Christmas, we REJECTED Jesus, Mary and Joseph from our homes. But Fr. Paschal notes in his homily that till today we continue to reject Jesus from our homes each time we rebuff those we consider as marginalized in society … the poor, the persons with disabilities, the abandoned elderly, the ethnic minorities and the imprisoned.
“If among you, one of your brothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be. Take care lest there be an unworthy thought in your heart and you say, ‘The seventh year, the year of release is near,’ and your eye look grudgingly on your poor brother, and you give him nothing, and he cry to the Lord against you, and you be guilty of sin. You shall give to him freely, and your heart shall not be grudging when you give to him, because for this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore, I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.” (cf. Deuteronomy 15:7-11)
Finally, my last Christmas lesson was RECONCILIATION. Fr. Paschal described Christmas as a time for reconciliation and has urged people to be reconciled with God and our neighbors (most especially those who wronged us). Fundamentally, we are out of sorts with God, we are trying to escape from him. But God loved the world and sent his only Son, Jesus Christ. He draws near to us with mercy and forgiveness. The message of Christmas is to be reconciled to God through his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. And because of what God has done, Christmas is a great time to fix up the feuds and quarrels and hatreds, which divide us.
The angels’ hymn on Christmas night is the hymn of reconciliation between God and men and women. Reconciliation is God’s program for his children on earth. On Christmas night, the angels sang this hymn, proclaiming the Gospel’s content: “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.” (Luke 2: 14)
Christmas is a call for reconciliation, as the Apostle Paul says, “[Christ] is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; having abolished in his flesh … enmity” (Ephesians 2: 14) and thereby giving us the ministry of reconciliation.
These are the Lessons I learned for Christmas … I hope you’ll learn them too.
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