Christmas 2006 begins with deaths and destructions caused by typhoon Reming. Like typhoon Milenyo a few months ago, Reming is one whose strength and devastation was never seen before. Survivors are one in saying that there will be no Christmas this year. They will postpone their celebrations because they have yet to build their lives.
Our heart goes to our Bicolano brothers and sisters, and their children and older loved ones. Images in our TV screens say it all. We shed a tear or two, but they do not do anything to alleviate the victims' pains and sufferings.
We have been through all these before. Even without “natural” disasters spoiling our Christmas, poverty – a greater disaster on all counts – is poignantly felt by Filipinos during Christmas. Or, should we say, during Christmas, Filipino families become more intolerant of their misery, the season being filled with pitches and sound bytes egging them to buy more, consume more, give more and celebrate more.
It is reported that, unofficially seventy percent of Filipino families are living below the poverty line. The more they see “ordinary families” glorified in TV screen celebrating an obviously “materialistic” and “consumerist” Christmas, the more majority of Filipinos tend to regard Christmas as something that must be avoided. The fact is, we cannot escape Christmas. We cannot avoid it. All we could do is survive Christmas.
To survive Christmas, we need to go back to its true meaning. It is not about having more money or buying more. It is about having more true friends and loving more. True friendship is not gained by exchanging material things, money, bribe, favors or promises of any kind. Loving more is forgiving, listening and understanding more, and spending more time with our beloved.
The message of Christmas is the good news that we have a Savior, God's greatest gift to mankind, whose greatest gift in turn, was his salvific suffering, death and resurrection made eternally accessible to human beings through the Eucharistic Celebration
Bringing our family members to mass or any sacred liturgy celebrating Jesus' birth will help us survive the consumerist and materialistic christmas unfairly rammed on us by the greedy gods of this world. What best way to celebrate Christmas than to continue our acts of loving, sharing and struggling to finally recover for our children the true Christmas taken away from us by big businessmen, politicians, thieves and deceivers.
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