CHRISTMAS, the warmest and most joyful feast in the liturgical calendar, will soon be upon us. As sincere Catholics, however, we must make sure that the more mundane and superficial aspects of this celebration – the exchange of gifts, the shining decorations, the holidays, the dainty foods and the lavish meal – do not obscure the deeper and more prophetic aspects of the feast.
This year, after re-reading Luke’s account of the Nativity, I noticed something that others must surely have noticed, but which struck me as particularly curious: Christmas is the feast of great ‘walkers’.
First of all we have the poor little donkey carrying Mary on his back for a number of days across the rocky terrain from Nazareth to Bethlehem. The diminutive animal is as skinny as a penitent hermit, as silent as a Trappist monk, and as patient as a Franciscan friar should be and, perhaps because of this, he is an essential part of the Nativity Scene. In a certain way, that humble beast represents all the poor, the sick and the suffering of the world. No one ever bothers to thank them, and they are even viewed as a burden on society. And yet these are truly the people who are qualified to declare with certainty that God is among us, because no one lives in greater intimacy with God than they do.
Then there is another group of walkers: the shepherds. In the holy night the angels did their best not to wake up the Jewish elders in Bethlehem along with the most important and wealthiest citizens in the small town. The divine messengers, instead, scoured the outskirts of the village in search of shivering shepherds lying among their sheep, and only when they found the herdsmen did they announce the great news: “The Saviour has been born tonight in Bethlehem, the city of David.”
In those days shepherds were seen as boorish, ignorant individuals, in short, as people on the margins of society. They knew next to nothing about Scriptures, prophecies, or the coming of the Saviour for that matter. Despite this they got up immediately, picked up their belongings, a bite to eat, and made their way to the newborn babe, looking for some small gift for the Divine Child in the process.
How provocative Luke’s Christmas story can be! The Evangelist is basically telling us that it was those who were deemed the last, the outcasts of society, who were given the privilege of the first revelation: they were the first to know, and the first to arrive at the Grotto. Later on, Christ would reaffirm this by saying, “I assure you, corrupt tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the Kingdom of God before you do.”
The third category of walkers is constituted by the Three Wise Men. They were learned, rich and powerful men coming from afar, but they were in no way obliged to leave their cosy palaces to brave a long, uncomfortable and hazardous journey to Palestine. However, they were acutely aware of the futility of worldly wealth, fame and knowledge, and they had the humility and ardent desire to meet the Son of God.
Even the learned, the rich and the powerful, can encounter Jesus, but this category of people must have the humility and the willingness to set out on a long, arduous path, and they must walk more, a lot more, than the poor and marginalised.
I do not know which (if any) of these three categories of walkers you belong to, dear readers. However, I can assure you of one thing: that we must all, both singly and with others, walk towards the shining star of Bethlehem. That is, we must all walk towards a better future characterised by love and mutual respect, which are the only values that can assure a lasting peace and true social cultural and economic development.
Merry Christmas to you and all your loved ones, dear readers, and remember what Mother Teresa used to say, “It is Christmas every time you let God love others through you… yes, it’s Christmas every time you smile at your brother and offer him your hand.”
Updated on October 06 2016