The Hindu : Miscellaneous / Religion : A festival of love

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Dec 25, 2004

Miscellaneous

Miscellaneous - Religion

A festival of love

CHENNAI, DEC. 25. The great French literary genius, Victor Hugo, in one of his admirable poems remarks that the saddest face brightens up with joy at the sight of a child. The birth of Jesus Christ celebrated on 25th December every year has been an event of great joy from the beginning. Every heart is called upon to prepare a `room' for Him and heaven and nature are invited to sing their mirth. The poor and the rich, the lowly and the erudite, all longed to see Him. Angels promised peace to all humans of goodwill, i.e., those who want to be true and honest with themselves and the others and seek to do what is good.

For children Jesus has given a good example by `being obedient' in his young days to His mother Mary and His foster father Joseph. By inviting children and blessing them fondly, He has given an example to the adults as to how they must find time for children despite their busy schedules. In His brief adult life Jesus advised that the adults must foster the child-like temperament of guilelessness and trust in God. "Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven," He asserts (Mathew 18/3). He wanted adults not to be a bad example to children or lead them to wrong actions. Christmas is then a season of rejoicing and re-experiencing the child in us. It is a lesson in simplicity and humility. In order to confound the power of the world, Jesus came in the weakness of a child and in order to set naught its pride, he made his bed of straw!

It is Mary the mother of Jesus who had kept the memory of Jesus' childhood and meditated upon it, who had shared it with St. Luke and St. Mathew who have recorded briefly the early life of Jesus. She could not deliver her baby in a crowded inn when she had come far away from Nazareth to Bethlehem to register her name with her husband Joseph, at the first historic census taken by the Romans. It is thus that she had to be in a cow shed with her newborn babe Jesus.The birth of Jesus in a manger invites us not to be too attached to worldly treasures and pleasures. Our earthly sojourn is temporary and the eternal home is the only reality. God became man. This is the essence of Christmas so that man may become like God.

May this Christmas fill us all with peace and joy that Jesus came to give to all human beings.

Bishop Lawrence Pius

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