REFLECTION
Cultivating the Christmas spirit
Again it's Christmastime, which, Pinoy style, starts way earlier and ends much later than what the Church calendar says, and expresses itself more elaborately than liturgically indicated.
I don't know whether it's age catching up or due to external causes that I don't seem to notice much Christmas décor around nowadays and to feel that palpable excitement I as a kid used to pair the season with.
I remember suggesting to the janitor to put new decors in my office, since I've been seeing the same ones for years now. He told me that they may look old to me but they all appear new and beautiful to the new students.
Rather than arguing, I chose to be happy with that smart reply, actually a cover for some budgetary limits. I just have to find a way to make the old look new. Problem is I'm creativity challenged in this area.
Anyway, I felt high when the other day a priest-friend, who has a raging passion and with matching skills for making Christmas crèches, showed me his latest version.
It's a very beautiful "belen" done in cool architectural artistry and landscaping, with playing fountains and dancing lights, with angels floating on air, and together with the usual cows and sheep, little pet dogs and cats accompany Mary and Joseph to adore the infant Jesus.
All of a sudden, I became a kid again, launched in a sparkling flight into the world of Christian mysteries, but still inflated by childish fantasies. Then I remember the duty we all have every time Christmastime comes around.
The Christmas story is actually a very beautiful story worth repeating endless times. Of course, each time it is considered, we are meant to plumb deeper into its significance and relevance, and to incarnate the lessons.
The Christmas story is about God who loves us so much that he sends his own Son to be like us to save us. And the Son's work of our redemption is the best that any attempt at saving anyone or anything can ever be.
For the redemption Jesus does is not simply personal but also social, not only material but also spiritual, not only in the human level but also in the supernatural level. It's a redemption complete, total, forever, a redemption ne plus ultra. He gives us the fullness of life.
This is all because we are God's children, created in his image and likeness, and meant to participate in God our Father's supernatural life. But in achieving that, our redemption presumes the fulfillment also of our human potentials.
We cannot fully attain our supernatural goal without being fully human. Of course, what is to be fully human is something not quite easy to know, since it is part of the mystery of Jesus' life. We have to continually deal with our Lord to get insights of this mystery.
In other words, Christmas is a reminder that Christ wants to be born not only in the world, but also in the heart of each one of us. He wants to take hold of us, of course, with our cooperation, in order to reconstitute us, since we have been deformed by our sins.
He wants to be born and to live in our mind, our heart and even in our body. He wants to be in our thoughts, desires, feelings, words and deeds. He wants us to make us like him, precisely to recover God's image and likeness in us.
The true spirit of Christmas can only take place when we allow our Lord to be truly born in us. This requires tremendous effort and the full exercise of our freedom. This is because Christ cannot enter into our life if we don't want him.
And wanting him is not just a matter of feeling and desire. It has to involve the whole of us: our mind, heart, body and everything else.
Thus, Christmas invites us to make our faith more and more theological, and to incarnate that theological faith in our life. Every time Christmas comes, we need to make a step further in this direction, such that with St. Paul we can say: "It is no longer I who lives but Christ who lives in me." (Gal 2,20)
(Fr. Cimagala is the Chaplain of Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE), Talamban, Cebu City, Email: roycimagala@hotmail.com)