Will We Ever be Ready for a Real Christmas?
Published in The Universe
(December 22, 2002)
Christmas will soon be here. It has become such a pagan celebration of everything that Jesus Christ shunned that it is not a fit place for him.
Christmas without Christ is meaningless
and the take over of the birth of Christ by the merchants of materialism and
the violence done in the name of serving Christ is a contradiction that
numbs the spirit. The red robed Santa pushing play stations and toy guns on
children has replaced the image of the child born in simplicity to bring
peace and non-violence .
We may forget he became the prophet who
challenged the unjust world of Herod and the hypocrites, and brought us an
example of love and reconciliation that the world had never known. This is
what I want to celebrate, the lives of many thousands of people of all ages
who are unselfishly helping others through countless acts of care and love.
They may not
even know it but they doing as he did being with others as he was. They are the living presence of Jesus in the world.
Generosity
I take little joy in the colored lights
of the shopping malls, those cathedrals of capitalism that worship money and
peddle products made without dignity. They promote extravagant buying and
tell us the more expensive the gift the greater our love. That's rubbish,
gift giving is a simple act of love and generosity. The widow's mite has
greater value than all the perfumes of Piccadilly or the gaudy glitter of
silver and gold.
We have much yet to do to bring this
experience to the youth today. Many young people hardly know what Christmas
is all about, for them it is binges and booze filled wild parties soaked in
rivers of alcohol and mind altering drugs. Too many disco halls are filled
with kids struggling with desperation and despair lonely and lost in a world
mad with the pursuit of pleasure and devoid of happiness.
Jesus tells us that love is about making
others happy. We adults have to teach by example, and inspire and lead
children to known the love that Jesus showed to us the love that liberates
and lifts up the spirit when it is busy affirming and helping others.
A Christmas storm threw thousands of
star fish on to the beach and the children rushed down to look at them
dying. One little boy started to thrown them back into the water. A man said
he was wasting his time. "Cant you see there's thousands, whatever you do it
doesn't matter". The boy replied as he threw another back into the sea "But
Mister, it matters to that one". Then all the children were throwing them
back shouting, " it matters to that one and that one". A million star fish
were saved that Christmas day.
Everyone can do something to make this a
more just world even saving a star fish is something good. What we need is a
kind of love that works to change an unjust world wallowing in vast wealth
while millions starve and die.
I greatly admire those families who do
small things to make life happier for others and challenge the root causes
of the misery and suffering caused by greed and waste. They are the children
of Christmas and bring salvation to the poor, reducing violence and
injustice through peacemaking, service and sacrifice. They are making Jesus
present in the world the way he wanted. Everyday is Christmas day for them.
Jesus, born to save us from evil and violence, calls us to make heaven on earth, empower the poor, free the children, heal the sick, restore dignity to the abused, and to love as he did, sacrificing himself to the point of death. No greater love could anyone give, no greater gift could anyone receive, at Christmas or any other day.
