A year to be remembered in our hearts

The season of Christmas is the biggest holiday for Catholics and Christians around the world. It is the festival celebrating the birth of Jesus. Christmas is celebrated around the world in different ways reflecting both cultural and national traditions. Even non-Catholic countries like Japan and Korea have adopted many aspects of Christmas such as gift-giving, putting up Christmas trees with attractive decorations. As one of the predominantly Catholic countries in Asia, the Philippines has earned the distinction of celebrating the world’s longest Christmas season.

In the past, this spiritual holiday was observed with so much solemnity. Participating in religious services play an important part in the recognition of the season. As a matter of fact, Christmas along with Easter is the period of highest annual church attendance. Over the centuries, the economic impact of Christmas is a factor that has grown steadily all over the world. Today, our children experience the season in a more commercialize way. Christmas has become the largest annual economic stimulus for many countries. Thanks to the West who introduced old Saint Nick, the holiday has become more colorful and festive. But the simplicity of the season and the message it should bring has been overshadowed by the delirious excitement brought about by the material things we get and the Christmas frills that go with it.

After all the Christmas get-togethers with family and friends, the misa de gallo and Noche Buena, we look back and pause. Then we ask ourselves, have we, indeed, prepared our spirit for the coming of Jesus Christ? Honestly, although I went through the proper duties and practices of a good Catholic, I still feel uncertain about how I have prepared myself for Jesus. Have I done everything to prepare myself for this momentous occasion? As I entered the church yesterday to hear Sunday mass, I saw families flocking in with a cheerful aura. So, I contemplated on this scenario and was able to analyze this whole episode of Christmas that just passed us by like a comet.

Truly, Christmas has cleansed our spirit. As we follow the Catholic tradition of prayer and look forward to the birth of our Lord, we prepare our hearts to allow us to build and strengthen the relationships we have among one another. At home, we clean, organize and beautify our surroundings with all the Christmas trimmings for “the coming” – the coming of our loved ones and friends. We prepare a banquet to feast on as we celebrate the glorious birth of Jesus. We wear our most beautiful clothes to welcome His coming. This is quite a symbolic experience but what makes this a real one is the experience of opening our doors, opening our hearts to our family and friends. This is the only time of the year when we are able to reunite with all our loved ones. God gives us this chance to cleanse ourselves and start anew. It is a feast of love – a reminder to all who keep faith that tomorrow will bring a new dawn.

Some of us forget about Jesus and prioritize the commercial buzz Christmas has to offer. But I believe that as we get older and wiser we will be able to find the true meaning of this spirited occasion embedded and ingrained deep down in our subconscious mind. If you want to balance your actions, you will have to go an extra mile of finding out what the true meaning of Christmas is, in your heart.

Our country actually balances our acts as Christians. We live in a natural environment that allows us to extend ourselves to people who are in need, to the families of our household staff and to the community helpers in our villages or barangays. Our children see our good deeds and the chain of ‘actions’ we have done – that of sharing and caring for others that continue throughout our lifetime, their lifetime and their children’s lifetime. It is a never-ending act of compassion.

We become better people as we reach out to other Filipinos in this archipelago. We are able to balance our lives, enjoying it but at the same time knowing and doing our Christian obligations. This is why I love the Philippines so much and will not ever leave it. Even if life is hard and difficult here, people somehow have an inner satisfaction and fulfillment that is difficult to explain. Many simple folks have come up to me saying, it feels wonderful to help others even in your own simple way. I believe that it is like a mantra that we do to cleanse our spirits as well. And in our hearts, as the day becomes night, we know that we have reached out to people and not only to ourselves. You may ask me, what about our politicians? Theirs is a different story. They are a different and desperate breed. They need more prayers, divine guidance and divine intervention from the Almighty and Powerful God!

As our nation continues to experience disasters, both natural and man-made, we tend to moralize about them, which is inevitable when catastrophe strikes. But how can we fully come to terms with the idea that our sins, our corruption, our acts of selfishness and violence, brought the wrath of heaven down on our heads, like the retribution from above which consumed the Biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. The tortured bodies in the Maguindanao Massacre, the emaciated bodies from the firecracker factory accident in General Santos a few days ago, and the bloated bodies of trapped victims during the Christmas Eve maritime disaster of the sunken M/V Catalyn B on its way to Lubang Island, Mindoro are inescapable examples.

By contrast, not one single political jerk or killer cop, to our knowledge, was turned (like Lot’s wife) into a pillar of salt. And yet, we are forcibly reminded by God of our morality and our vulnerability. In our conceit, we mortals love to invoke a pompous phrase, whenever we undertake or say anything, by which we claim that it is an “earthshaking event” or an “earthshaking revelation.”

Even the Pope was not spared. Hours after a woman vaulted a barrier and knocked him down on the ground, Pope Benedict XVI delivered his traditional Christmas message at St. Peter’s Basilica. He spoke in a firm voice appearing undaunted by the incident.

In his sermon to the world’s 1.1 billion Roman Catholics, the Pope focused on the needy and praised the work of the church in places like the Philippines, Korea and Sri Lanka. He said there should be an “attitude of acceptance and welcome,” for all those who migrate from their homelands and are driven away by hunger, intolerance or environmental degradation.

He said the Church was a “source of unity” for many people across the world and called for those in conflict zones to show respect for one another. He said that, “conflict and lack of reconciliation in the world stem from the fact that we are locked into our own interests and opinions, into our own little private world”. The Pope urged the world to “wake up” from selfishness and petty affairs, and find time for God and spiritual matters.

Wow! What a year it has been! We are even ending it with a big bang from our beautiful Mayon Volcano. Now that is truly Pinoy! Happy New Year!