A short time ago we began the Advent season that leads to Christmas. Christmas is a season of universal festivity. Even non-believers perceive something extraordinary and transcendental about the Christmas season.

However, under the drive of hedonist consumerism, Christmas runs the risk of losing its spiritual meaning, reduced to a mere commercial occasion to buy and exchange gifts. The world’s current economic difficulties might serve as a stimulus for rediscovering the warmth of the simplicity, friendship, and solidarity that are the typical values of Christmas.

As we turn our eyes toward the infant Jesus in the manger, all peoples should be grateful for that gift of love and be ready to welcome it everywhere, and that welcome should take the form of caring for those in need. Indeed, the almighty God reveals Himself to us as a poor infant in order to conquer our pride. In the Baby Jesus we see the defenselessness of God’s love: God comes to us unarmed, because he does not intend to conquer externally, but rather to win us over and transform us internally – to lead us to our true selves.

The cave stall, where the Baby lay, was not inhabited by refined persons. Are we very far from that stall precisely because we are too refined and intelligent? Don’t we perhaps live too much closed in ourselves, in our self-sufficiency, our fear of persecution, such that we are no longer able to perceive in the night the voices of angels so that we may join them in adoring Him?

When we place the figurines in our Christmas crèche, we should pray to God to grant to our hearts that simplicity that recognises the Lord in the Baby.

Paul Kokoski

London, Ontario

Canada