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The Other Meaning Of Christmas
First Published: Reflections - Philippine Daily Inquirer Publication Date: 25th December 1994 Author's Name: Father Shay Cullen SSC Its Christmas morning. We celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ who brought the hope of Salvation into the darkness of sin. As a child born in poverty He was threatened from his birth by the very forces of darkness he came to call to repentance and restitution. Forgiveness, reconciliation, friendship with the God of Creation is the reward for faith, repentance and a new born commitment to the Gospel of justice and love. From the beginning Jesus and his parents became fugitives and refugees. Through this child, born not in the palaces of the rich but the humble hovels of the poor, God came among us to inspire change, to teach that justice and respect is the beginning of love. Jesus was sent to tell all people for all time that they are not abandoned to the forces of tyranny and corruption perpetuated by the Herods of this world. Poverty is not an act of God but comes from the greedy and selfish acts of humankind. The Son of God whose birthday we celebrate today tells each of us that we are important, equal before God and called to be friends of God. Especially the most powerless, the poorest, the most ordinary of us who are not influential who struggle with corrupt officials who are worn down overcoming debt, family problems, unemployment and sickness . The message of Christmas is that this is not God's doing, that we are not created to live in squalor filth and grinding poverty nor are our rights to be disregarded, trampled on and demeaned by those driven by corporate and personal greed to get corrupt contracts and obscene kick-backs. We are made in God's Image and Likeness, God loves us and we are deserving of a life of dignified self-determination and material and spiritual self-sufficiency in this world and hereafter. When Christians experience setbacks, when you feel defeated and the rich and powerful appear to have crushed the voice and aspirations of the people then have faith. When the rights of people are trampled into the ground like Napacor and the Japanese EXIM Bank and the Asian Development Bank is doing in Bani, Masinloc, stand fast in the truth. Their bid to build their power plant regardless of the opposition of many people is filled with deceit and hypocrisy. They have fed false information to the decision makers and falsely accused the leaders of the Power Plant opposition of being communist subversives to advance their own greedy ends. Arrogant and influential as these are they cannot overcome the spirit of the people nor can they be at peace with themselves for what they have done justify it as they may. They have sold their own people for personal gain. Christians take hope and strength all the more from the life and example of Jesus Christ born in a hovel, hounded as a child, falsely accused ,condemned when a man and executed as a subversive. Those who continue this kind of oppression in the guise of "development", "progress", "democracy" are the Herods of today who create wealth for themselves and their corporations and plunge the poor deeper into poverty and suffering. When we compare the division of rich and poor at Christmas we see the rich have coopted the Christmas image of the child Jesus and turned it into a consumers come-on. The rich have no right to exclusively blame the poor for poverty-related crime when the greater crime is theirs. By condemning the poor to a demeaning life of constant need by manipulating them they contradict their calling as children of God. The meaning and message of Christmas has been lost on the modern day scrooges like the robber barons of industry, the political tycoons and moguls of mammon. While this country is ruled by a clique of families who's hearts are hardened by obsession with power and corrupted by the greed for money there can be no real just society, political stability or true progress. "Keep Christ out of Christmas, it's not a good place for Him", the adage goes. How true. More and more people are blinded by the dazzling lights strung along the boulevards and avenues of our cities. They cost millions of pesos and only serve to light up the contradictions of society. Along Ayala Ave the lights trace the Christmas story of the birth of Jesus. Behind the glittering walls and windows of those cathedrals of capitalism human lives are bought and sold as the empire builders worship at the altars of money while millions go hungry. A few blocks away are the teeming hovels of the unemployed and the poor who's Christmas is perhaps far worse than that of the holy family on the first Christmas night. There they struggle to have enough simple meals for their children, a plastic toy if they are lucky and grateful for a Christmas handout from charitable workers. In their poverty love shine out, care for their children and each other is the evidence that Christ is born in the hearts of the poor.
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