A feast for our children

Fr. Joe Paul Fernando

Christmas belongs to children and to the child in all of us. That is the reason why this wonderful feast of the birth of Jesus can be celebrated by all of us in all parts and countries of the world.

Jesus was born as a little infant. Not as an all conquering and a powerful hero or warlord.

In a way, that is the appeal and the attraction of the feast.

Bethlehem was a sleepy little hamlet then. There was no room in the inn. Joseph and Mary had to find shelter and refuge in an insignificantly small place, may be a tiny little stable in a cave. Everything about his birth was small and entirely devoid of pomp and glory at the time it happened.

But today Bethlehem is a bustling city the centre of which is a gigantic basilica erected over the place where tradition holds Jesus was born. Policies and worldly power held sway then and it is not too different today.

Yet prophet Isaiah announced that a great light would appear at the birth of a child. St. Paul anticipated that a people cleansed of all unrighteousness and godless ways would respond to life with childlike innocence. We adults can certainly learn from the incredible delight and the wonder of our children. If Christmas speaks to the child in all of us, it is not because the day and the feast could in any way be termed childish but because it is intimately close like children to the well springs of life.

St. Luke picks up the theme of smallness of the incredibly great event when he records very simply and succinctly, “She laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn where travellers lodged,”.

St. Bernard takes up the same theme when he asks rhetorically, “Lord, what made you so small?” Then he himself provides the answer. “It was nothing else but love.” We have only to have a close look at the crib and have the faith to discern and know deeply within our minds and hearts that this little baby, in the words of great bishop Fulton J Sheen, who was born without a mother in heaven and without a father on earth did it purely and entirely out of love. St. Paul in his exquisite letter to the Philippines says ”When he was in the form of God.......he emptied himself.....”

St. John makes it even more poignant, “The World was made flesh.” Because of his love for us in becoming a member of the human family, Christ became every man and woman and every child. He has taken everyone of us to himself because he assumed our flesh and blood.

This incredibly world shaking event occurred almost in total secrecy, silence and the darkness of the night. But now that darkness has been scattered by the wonderful light of his coming.

With Jesus we can rise with a new freshness, purity and possess the innocence and the hope of a child. Although in the guise of a little infant, let us not forget that he is the Wonder counsellor, God-hero, father for ever and the Prince of Peace.

This is basically and especially a feat for and of children and a holiday of love. And love really means being together.

Let us then be together on this holy day and holiday of love and offer Almighty God our profuse thanks for the precious gift of His Son.

“Is it true that he who was born in Bethlehem lives today in bread and wine?” Most certainly a resounding yes.