Preparing for True Christmas (2nd Sunday Advent C)

We are yet into the second week of advent but already some signs of Christmas festivities are starting to be felt early on. Somehow I feel we are cutting short our preparations for the Christmas season. Or more alarmingly perhaps we are losing sight of the true meaning of Christmas. Let me expound this point in the light of the voice in the desert in today’s gospel boldly crying out: “Prepare the way of the Lord.”

I was in a mall for some things I needed. A very familiar song was wafting in the air and caught my attention: “People making list, buying special gifts, taking time to be kind to one and all…” I suddenly missed Michael Jackson. Also, something inside of me was awakened. I began worrying about goodies and stuff to buy as Christmas presents for my family and friends! Then all of a sudden I was made aware of the many attractive gift packages already displayed in every nook and cranny of the mall. I checked them out and they were beckoning me… enticing me… whispering to me… “Buy me.” When I mustered all the remaining courage to resist, a beautiful saleslady approached me. I was afraid she might whisper too. Luckily this time my remaining wits got me off the hook. I managed to quickly compliment her. “Miss, it’s a beautiful hat you’re wearing, huh.” It was Santa’s red hat.

I remember a missionary friend stationed in China. Once he told me how surprised he was to discover one store in the midst of a communist and Buddhist society selling Christmas decorations and stuff. He entered the store. Curiously he looked for a “Belen.” There was none. He approached the store owner and asked for it. “What’s a Belen?” the store owner asked (of course in mandarin). “It’s a manger where Jesus Christ is born.” “Sorry, we don’t have it. Why don’t you buy this stuff instead; I think this is the reason behind Christmas celebration, isn’t it?” The store owner was pointing at the image of Santa Claus and the cute reindeer pulling his sleigh.

This is the problem when we cut short the season of advent. We are bound to fail to heed the voice in the desert shouting: “Prepare the way of the Lord.” We lose sight of the Lord Jesus Christ and all he stands for. We unwittingly welcome Santa Claus and his reindeer instead.

Hence, preparations for Christmas become a matter of putting up external decorations, installing intricate series of lights that beguile us enough to forget the shooting up of our electric bills afterwards. Moreover, preparing for Christmas means shopping! So we demand bonuses as our right, only to spend those in buying things we falsely believe to bring home the spirit of Christmas.

If we don’t take Advent seriously, we uncritically fall into the trap set by the commercial traders who are all too happy to turn this great feast into a materialistic perversion.

I find resonance in the words of the Columban Missionary, Fr. Shay Cullen, in one of his articles: “Many people wrongly measure themselves by what they own, possess and control rather than measuring themselves by their commitment and action in doing good for others. Christmas has become the worship of prancing reindeer and an obese man with a beard rather than the heroic self-sacrificing Jesus of Nazareth and all he stands for.”

We need to recapture the true meaning of Christmas, lest we all condone its degeneration into another of those consumerist festivals. Would you be happy to revise Christmas and call it “consumeristmas” instead?

We see then the import of Advent. The season calls for authentic preparation: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths. Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill shall be made low. The winding roads shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God” (Lk 3:4-6).

These are words of the prophet Isaiah which the gospel of today links with John the Baptist’s proclamation of a baptism of repentance. The prophets and John were incessant in their reminder of the need to prepare for the Lord’s coming. They called for repentance.

Hence, preparation during advent, for the people of this generation, is not so much about possession of new things or participation in the consumerist festival. Precisely, it is turning our back to this materialistic propensity. This is the meaning of repentance. It is turning towards Jesus and embracing his values. This is how we prepare the way of the Lord.

Again, in the words of Fr. Shay Cullen:

“Jesus brought into the world a whole new way of viewing the purpose and meaning of human life. It is a challenge for us to choose to serve others, to forget self and worldly ambition, throw aside the perverting desire for wealth, power, riches and to live with simplicity, compassion and care for those in dire need and not do it for a reward in this life or the next. Jesus called for the world to turn from oppressing and exploiting the poor and the weak and to do good, oppose evil ambitions, war, violence and the violation of people's rights.”

Such is what Christmas truly stands for.

So this second Sunday of Advent we may do well to prepare the way of the Lord by examining our uncritical attitude towards the consumerism that’s scandalously undermining the true meaning of Christmas. Well, in simple and direct terms, this means less shopping and buying unnecessary things; but more time for interior readiness to embrace the Lord and serve Him in one another especially in the poor of today.

How have you celebrated Christmas before? Was it Christ-centered or Santa Claus-inspired? Which festival would you want to participate in? Christmas? Or Consumeristmas?

Listen & Proclaim! (23rd Sunday Ordinary B)

The Asian Bishops (9th FABC) who gathered in Manila in August of 2009 ended the conference with a challenge to the clergy to make the Eucharist a “transformative event” for Catholics. The source of this power to transform, as the bishops intimated, is the Word of God being listened to devoutly by the faithful and proclaimed relevantly by preachers in the Eucharistic celebrations. Simply put, the call is for priests and catholic families to listen to the Word of God and to proclaim it in a relevant and nourishing way. These two complimentary acts of listening to and proclaiming the word of God can “bear the fruits of renewal.”

The acts of listening and proclaiming are the very acts that a person who is deaf and mute cannot possibly do. A deaf person cannot hear. He can’t listen. A mute person cannot speak. He cannot proclaim. Almost always, a deaf person since birth has problem speaking too. This gives us an insight into the relationship of listening and proclaiming the word of God: We can proclaim only what we have listened to.

Today’s gospel describes how Jesus heals a man who is deaf and mute. Jesus puts his finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, touches his tongue; Looking up to heaven says aloud, “Ephphatha!” (Be opened!). And the man’s ears are opened, his speech impediment removed (Mk 7:33-35). My intention is not so much to comment on the detail of Jesus’ action as to point out the significance which the evangelist Mark gives to this narrative. For Mark, the miracle is a reminder of Jesus’ ministry to the gentiles and therefore a validation of the ministry of the early church among the gentiles. This is the point of Mark: Like the gentiles, the man is both deaf and dumb towards God. Once the good news is proclaimed to him, however, his ears are opened to the word and his tongue is loosed to proclaim Jesus as the Messiah.

We need to reflect too on the import of this narrative to the people of today—to us. In what sense are we like the deaf and mute person of the narrative? In what ways are we unable to listen to God’s word and, hence, not capable of proclaiming it? Or to put it in another way, relating it to the call of the Asian Bishops, what are the challenges we are facing today that hinder us from truly listening to the word of God and proclaiming it effectively and relevantly for the renewal of our communities?

Let me suggest three challenges, three trends without promising to be exhaustive: Today we tend to be 1) activity-driven; 2) electronic technology driven; and 3) consumption driven.

Activity-driven. We always seem to be very busy. We spend all our days moving from one activity to another, accomplishing one project to another. Beating deadlines. We become addicted to achievements. We somehow tend to believe that our worth as a person is in “doing.” No more time for “being.” No more time to be still and to listen to God’s word. Much less, to proclaim it in words and deeds. No wonder, many of what we do end up as self-centered, misguided, conventional achievements that bloat our ego but have no prophetic power to change the ills of our communities. Too much of disoriented activities. Less and less of discernment. Despite the amount of energy we spent, we have not served!

Electronic technology driven. We have too much data to process. Too much information—from text messages, from emails, facebook, twitter, favorite websites, netflix, video scandals, video games, endless sites on pornography and what have you. Information come and go. We are a generation with so many distractions that we can hardly focus on the essentials. We are losing our capacity for depth and our capacity to enjoy relishing something of beauty and of value. We settle for what is fleeting and superficial. Thus, we no longer appreciate the depth and beauty of the word of God ever ancient, ever new. No wonder our lives are shallow. Despite so many data and information, we lack understanding; we lack wisdom.

Consumption driven. This consumerist society of today would have us find the meaning of life in “having”-- to have more and more of things… more shoes, more shirts, more cellphones, more of everything that is advertised. A modern credo captures this trend,  we read this sometimes on a bumper sticker: “I shop, Therefore I am.” In this consumerist trend, our capacity to listen is exercised on the endless TV advertisements. What guide our lives are no longer the truth of the Word of God but the subtle lies of advertisement and the lure of possession that we listen to day after day. Our capacity to discern is reduced to making choices among leading brands of shampoo for instance and among new fashionable gadgets that become obsolete in a year or two. And we simply become deaf to the interior promptings of the Holy Spirit--the gentle invitation of God to choose him rather than created things. Despite so many things that we possess, our life is empty!

We are like the man in today’s gospel—deaf and mute—in many and varied ways. If we Christians continue to be so, Christianity loses its power to lead people to conversion, to renew families and communities and to transform our nation because like everybody else we would just settle with the frivolity of what is conventional, superficial, and fashionable. Like the deaf and mute in today’s gospel, we need an “ephphatha experience.” We need God’s grace to open up our ears and lips for us to listen to his Word most devoutly once again and proclaim it convincingly in words and in deeds.

The message of the Asian Bishops may have been Spirit-inspired—inviting all of us to make our Eucharistic celebrations as transformative events for our lives by giving attention to the Word of God. Let us become contemplative listener of His Word. Only then we can become effective proclaimer of the good news both by our lips and our lives. We can only proclaim what we have heard.

“Lord, open my ears and loosen my tongue to hear you and proclaim your goodness in a complacent society that wants to settle only for what is conventional, superficial, and fashionable.”