PASTORAL MESSAGE: Is Christmas Born In Our Hearts?

By Fr. HENRY SALDITOS
St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church

Once again, Christmas is here. We commemorate that great event when the Son of God, conceived in the virginal womb of the Blessed Mother, was born into the world. And so, we exclaim, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” Merry Christmas to all!

This is the most awaited feast of the year that we Christians celebrate. With this economic inflation and ongoing wars in some countries, disasters and calamities in many parts of the world, many people are saying that Christmas should not be celebrated this year.

Yet despite all of these, the people just cannot be stopped from celebrating Christmas. After all, Christmas is more than just the parties, gifts and merriment. It is all about the Birth of the Lord who comes into our world and lives among us to bring happiness, peace and salvation.

Needless to say, this difficult situation we are in now has helped us focus our attention more on the essence and real meaning of Christmas. This has led many of us to ask ourselves: What makes Christmas a truly happy and joyous event of the year? And by now, we hope the answer is clear: It is Jesus Christ, God’s greatest Gift to us: “For God so loved the world that he gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life” (Jn 3:16).

In short, therefore, Christmas will always be joyful, no matter what situation we are in, as long as Jesus is born in our hearts.

Meister Eckhart once said: “What good is it that Christ was born 2,000 years ago if he is not born now in your heart?”

And according to Helen Keller, “The only real blind person at Christmas-time is he who has not Christmas in his heart.”

Hence, it is very important that we open ourselves and welcome Jesus into our hearts. On that first Christmas, it is so sad to note that the people of Bethlehem did not give Him just a little decent space: “There is no room in our inn.”

Honestly, we have to admit that there are times in our life that we are like them. Our daily lives are filled up with a lot of schedule of activities, mostly worldly and superficial.

Pope Benedict XVI takes note of this in one of his Christmas homilies: “For most people, the things of God are not given priority, they do not impose themselves on us directly. And so, the great majority of us tend to postpone them. First, we do what seems urgent here and now. In the list of priorities God is often more or less at the end. We can always deal with that later, we tend to think.”

If Christ is born in our heart, it is always possible to celebrate Christmas, not only in December, but even every day.

This is what St. Paul of the Cross insisted: “Celebrate the feast of Christmas every day, even every moment in the interior temple of your spirit, remaining like a baby in the bosom of the heavenly Father, where you will be reborn each moment in the Divine Word, Jesus Christ.”

Hence, there is a clear need for sincere and regular examination of conscience and the grace of the sacrament of Confession so that our interior being will be ready to receive the Lord. This will always lead us to genuine humility, recognizing how unworthy we are for such a great gift. A humble heart is what will help us capture the true spirit of Christmas, for in the Incarnation, God humbled Himself, “being born in the likeness of men” (Phil 2:8).

A non-Catholic author, Morton Kelsey, puts it beautifully: “I am very glad Jesus was born in a stable because my soul is very much like a stable filled with strange and unsatisfactory longings, with guilt and animal-like impulses…tormented by anxiety, inadequacy, and pain. If Christ could be born in such a place, He can be born in me also. I am not excluded.”

Indeed, “It is Christmas in the heart that puts Christmas in the air” (W.T. Ellis).
Let this prayer of Meister Eckhart be ours, too:“Lord, be born in my heart. Come alive in me this Christmas! Amen.”