Christmas - A time to reflect


CHRISTMAS – A TIME TO REFLECT

Mario D’Couto

            Wait a minute, should not Christmas be a time for celebrating, parties or being happy? Well, if I have got you thinking, then I would encourage you to read on. If you have read my previous blogpost/article, “The Season of Christmas”, this blogpost/article is to add what was stated previously. We may just say that this is an extension of what was mentioned earlier in the previous blogpost.

            In his book, “Life of Christ”, Bishop Sheen tells us that there are two kinds of philosophies in life,

Ø  First the feast then the hangover
Ø  First the fast then the feast

        Deferred joys purchased by sacrifices are always the sweetest and the most enduring. Christianity begins not with sunshine but with defeat. Sunshine religions (positive psychology/self – help for example) begins with psychic elation and often ends in disillusionment and despair.

            Unless there is a Good Friday in our lives, there will never be Easter Sunday. The seed must fall to the ground and die before it springs forth to new life. The Cross is the condition of the empty tomb and the crown of thorns is the preface to the halo of light. Unfortunately, today, we are living in a ‘quick – fix’ culture and somehow it seems as though the meaning of sin has been lost. Morality has become subjective. If I’m blind and deny there is any such thing as light, I shall never see. If I’m deaf and deny sound, I shall never hear. If I deny there is sin, I make forgiveness impossible.

            If we leave the Cross out of the life of Christ, we have nothing left and certainly not Christianity. For the Cross, is related to our sins. Christ was our ‘stand – in’ on the stage of life. He took our guilt as if He were guilty and thus paid the debt that sin deserved, namely, death. This made our resurrection to a new life in Him possible. Christ therefore is not just a teacher or a peasant revolutionist but our Saviour.

            Now you may probably be thinking, “Should this guy not be writing or sharing about this probably during Lent or Good Friday (if he does want to make such a point?” Well, apparently yes. But let’s not forget that the purpose of Christ’s coming – to destroy sin and to destroy the reign of the evil one. The life of our Blessed Lord has to be understood as a whole and if we were to compartmentalize it or just take one aspect of it and leave out the rest, we would be doing ourselves a big mistake.

            Christ’s birth is an inauguration of a new humanity as the adopted Children of God. The nearer Christ comes to a heart, the more it becomes conscious of its guilt; it will either ask for His mercy and find peace or else it will turn against Him because it is not yet ready to give up its sinfulness. Thus He will separate the good from the bad, the wheat from the chaff.

            Bishop Sheen explains this beautifully when he writes about the presentation of Our Blessed Lord in the following words, “Simeon was practically calling Him (Our Blessed Lord), the ‘Divine Disturber’, Who would provoke human hearts either to good or evil. Once confronted by Him, they must subscribe to light or darkness. Before everyone else they can be ‘broadminded’; but His Presence reveals their hearts to be either fertile ground or hard rock. He cannot come to hearts without clarifying them and dividing them; once in His Presence, a heart discovers both its own thoughts about goodness and its own thoughts about God.

            This could never be so if He were just a humanitarian teacher. Simeon knew this well and he told Our Lord’s Mother that Her Son must suffer because His life would be so much opposed to the complacent maxims by which most people govern their lives. He would act on one soul in one way and on another in another way, just as the sun shines on wax and softens it and shines on mud and hardens it. There is no difference in the sun, only in the objects on which it shines. As the Light of the World, He would be a joy to the good and the lovers of light but He would be a like a probing searchlight to those who were evil and preferred to live in darkness. The seed is the same, but the soil is different and each soil will be judged by the way it reacts to the seed. The will of Christ to save is limited by the free reaction of each soul either to accept or reject.”

        With these words, I wish you all and your families a blessed and a happy Christmas and may Our Blessed Lord always be the centre of our lives, now and always. God bless!

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