True meaning of Christmas:
Message for all
Rodney Martinesz
Another Christmas is upon us with the cheery festive mood evident all
around. The city is thronged with last minute shoppers and business is
brisk, from the humble pavements to the giant shopping malls.Christmas
perennials blare forth from the ubiquitous record bars and sundry shops
sending the Christmas feeling coursing through one's veins.
Scented cypresses are sold on pavements and sidewalks to buyers in a
rush.Rubicund apple cheeked Santa Clauses beam out of shop windows
advertising the latest brands and the people's faces mirror a general
air of gaiety and joy.The holiday mood has engulfed one and all with the
atmosphere thick with the feelings of joyful expectation at the dawn of
yet another Christmas.
Present day Christmas festivities have come a long way from those
Yuletides of yore when things moved at a leisurely pace albeit with
brisk activity in the days leading up to Christmas.For the very young,
in most Christian families, the December vacations herald the Christmas
season with parents too reserving their quota of leave for the Christmas
season to embark on the much looked forward to Christmas shopping.
Those were the days when shopping was done at leisure unlike today's
mad scramble in keeping with the fast pace of present day life.The
lavish bonuses dished out by the many Mercantile firms also made
Christmas a big occasion for celebration. Christmas shoppers also had
their favourite stores in the past unlike today where everything could
be bought under one roof. Alas most of these landmarks are no more
although most old timers speak of them with a sense of nostalgia.
Devotion
Christmas was also a much looked forward to event in the now almost
extinct burgher community which dominated many pockets in the Colombo
North area, notably Hulftsdorph,Princess Gate and Kotahena. For them
Christmas was a much looked forward event to be celebrated to the
utmost. In fact Christmas was a day of Bacchanal roister where spirits
flowed freely. Like the rest, the days preceding Christmas were devoted
to stockpiling where the stores were conveyed in rickshaws, a common
mode of transport at the time.Central in the run up to the Christmas day
was the preparation of the Christmas cake for which the ingredients had
been carefully preserved for months.The Breudher was another must in
Burgher homes prepared to a special recipe.
Carols was another feature in Burgher homes sung with gusto to
perfect harmonising by members of the families and extended families.
The weeks preceding Christmas would normally see carol singers
parading the streets in groups donned in fancy attire visiting every
home collecting in the process a substantial purse invariably spent on
lengthy bouts of roistering. Central to all is the mid night mass where
the church overflow with both the faithful and those “once a year church
goers”.
Universal festival
It goes without saying that Christmas is a universal festival
celebrated across religions, cultures and ethnic boundaries .No matter
what gloom has descended Christmas festivities cannot be dampened.That
is why even in the throes of the worst economic crisis to hit the
Western world Christmas is celebrated without let or hindrance among
these societies.
But is Christmas being observed as it should ? Is this great event
heralding the peace and joy to the world being abused, its true meaning
and the message conveyed by the birth of Jesus in a manger surrounded by
cattle and shepherds, distorted and denigrated? Or is it being used as a
pretext for another bout of merriment and revelry ?.
Sadly amidst the babel and humdrum, today the underlying message of
Christmas is largely lost in the modern age of raw commercialism and the
cacophony of the market place. Nay, Christmas today has been made a
commodity by the multinational commercial behemoths to rake in
inconceivable profits sacrificing the true message of Christmas on the
Atar of Mammon.
Today Christmas has been taken for granted as an occasion for revelry
and nothing else by a majority of Christians buttressed by the fact it
coincides with the year end. Symbols such as the Christmas tree, the
crib denoting the nativity, are only tokens for the unbridled jollity.
Sadly even the Church today has failed to get across the message to its
followers of the true meaning and message of Christmas - the message of
sharing and reaching out to the poor and the deprived.Here too only
token concession is made with the larger picture subsumed in the
festivities and merriment.
The level of commercialisation of Christmas can be seen by the giant
structures of the nativity scenes adorning the frontage of supermarkets
and city shopping malls, symbols of ostentation and profiteering. Santa
Clause is but a clownish figure doing his thing opposite shops and store
fronts.
The time has come to rescue Christmas from the grip of mammon and
revisit the true meaning and message denoted by the coming of Christ to
this world.
Christmas should be salvaged from the unbridled commercialisation to
which it has fallen in this day and age. A huge responsibility devolves
around the church leaders and leading Christian figures to redeem
Christmas from the current decadence.While celebrations are quite in
order as meriting such a momentous occasion Christmas should not be
degenerated to a commodity to be exploited by the unscrupulous and the
mendacious.
It is time that the essential message of Christmas be dinned into
Christians with more emphasis and vigour by the guardians of the faith
so that we would all be enriched and inspired by the lasting message of
that far away first Christmas and make Christmas a more meaningful event
in the hearts and minds of all Christians instead of letting temporary,
fleeting pleasures override us blinded by the tinsel and chrome,the
baubles and the gee gaws, that have come to characterize this momentous
event
Christmas - manifestation of God’s love in a troubled world
E. Weerapperuma
God is love. The extra-ordinary Birth of Jesus Christ from the womb
of a Virgin is a splendid manifestation of God's love. We, the
Catholics, the Christians and the men, women of good-will celebrate this
eventful birth, Christmas, every year. Jesus Christ is the central
figure in the whole celebration and without Him, there is no Christmas.
Jesus Christ was not born into a peaceful world. It was in trouble
and in a chaotic mess. But the men of good will of the day, hoped
against hopes for a Messiah, a Saviour into this chaotic and trouble
world, since the day of the fall of our first parents.
They ignite the wrath of God, the creator when they disobeyed Him.
Though God threw away them, from the Garden of Eden, the merciful God
creator promised a saviour and in celebrating Christmas, we recall to
mind that promise of God and its fulfillment in the birth of Jesus
Christ in the manger.
The will of God
Christ did not choose royal palace, or the lineage of the royalty
though He was connected to the clan of David, the King, to be born to
this world. He preferred a poor Carpenter Joseph to be His Foster Father
and Mary, a young virgin His earthly Mother. They lived a hand to mouth
life sharing and experiencing the poverty of the majority of their time
and Mary stands in the trio, the outstanding and extra-ordinary figure,
as for her total submission to the Will of God had paved the way to
implement the plan of God for humanity of the past the present and the
future.
Her submission-fiat is the key word of the celebration of Christmas
which has been disfigured today, and the event been far too
commercialized to the extent that we have lost or buried the real
meaning of Christmas.
When Mary, a Virgin who had not known a man when the Angel of God
greeted her to announce what God has planned and when she in all her
innocence inquired how what the Angel said could come true, she being a
Virgin, she was told in plain language that everything was possible to
God and informed that her Cousin Elisabeth was pregnant and was in her
sixth month. And Mary said “I am the hand-maid of God-May Thy Holy Will
be done”, writes the scribe of the Sacred Scripture.
Birth
Look at Joseph, the Carpenter. He is advised in a dream by the Angel
of God to accept Mary with a child as his wife and we read from that
time onwards He was troubled with the responsibility on his shoulders.
He takes the wife close to give birth to infant Jesus to Bethlehem. They
were not welcomed and Mary gives birth to her infant child in a shed,
not with men and women surrounding her in a alien country, but with cows
and calves in the manger. The birth takes place, in the pretty cold
atmosphere both a fact of nature and figuratively manifested the
cold-feet of the people who refused to provide shelter to the woman in
her last stages of pregnancy. They wanted no trouble. They did not want
to bother!.
Joseph was troubled again. Hostility was growing against the birth of
his Son. He was advised in a dream to fly away with the mother and Child
to avoid the sword and for the safety, until further notice.
We celebrate Christmas today, pushing all that happened in history to
the back door and the atmosphere of celebrating that birth of Infant
Jesus is coloured and disfigured with much commercialization.
Christmas has meaning in relation to the paschal event of Suffering,
Death and Resurrection of young man Jesus in His thirties and if we lose
sight of that, there is no meaning to our celebration of Christmas.
Christmas is, because of Easter. If there is no death there is no
Resurrection and if there is no Resurrection, our faith has no meaning,
St Paul reminds us all.
Christmas we celebrate reminds us of the Second Coming of Jesus in
His Glory to Judge the world of the Living and the Dead. The day of
retribution. We have to be conscious of that and keep that in our minds
when celebrating Christmas.
For He will say “I do not Know You”. “I came in the form of the poor,
the naked and the hungry. I was in prison and I was sick. You failed to
treat me, visit me and did not bother to care about me and I do not know
you!”.
And if we have been liked the wise virgins, the sacred scripture
relates, who were conscious that at any time of the day the prince would
arrive, we would be fortunate to be called to live and enjoy the
privileges of the Kingdom of God!
There is no point and no meaning if we say “I love my God” and forget
or ignore pleas of our neighbour who looks for help and protection.
This Christmas we celebrate invites us to recognize Christ in the
poor and the needy, in the sick, the marginalized and those thrown to
the wayside, in Sri Lanka.
Like in the case of Mary, the Virgin who submitted herself totally to
the plan of God unhesitatingly, we whose names are written on the palm
of the Divine, are also called to give ourselves to God in all what we
do, to spread His Message of Love, to our immediate neighbourhood first
and foremost and to the world at large.
When Christ was born, the world was in trouble and that troubled
world continues even to this Christmas day and we feel the pressure of
that situation even in Sri Lanka, our Motherland. Catholics, Christians
and those men, women of Goodwill who claim to be the sons and daughters
of this land have a duty as children of light to be the torch-bearers,
to enkindle the world with words and deeds to make a better world to
live, for those who are living today and to those who would follow us
some day.
If we, the present generation could ensure the prevalence of peace
and harmony within the neighbourhood and diffuse the message of love
into each and every corner of society, then celebrating Christmas would
have meaning to our lives and to lives of our neighbour.
We wish our readers such a Christmas this year !
The Prince and the Follower
Very testing is this Walk with Thee,
Of well over half a century,
Bruising has this pledge been,
To stand close to Thee
But what else could I expect?
For, Your Way is paved with pitfalls and pain,
To fully take on which Man’s courage fails
However, it leads to blessedness,
And Peace which were in Bethlehem’s Stable born,
When the Word was in Flesh formed,
And a Second Life was given to Man by God.
Lynn Ockersz |