A DIFFERENT NIGHT
Christmas contains a secret that unfortunately escapes many of those who in those dates celebrate «something» without knowing exactly what. They can’t suspect that Christmas offers the key to decipher the ultimate mystery of our existence.
Generation after generation, human beings have anxiously cried out their deepest questions. Why do we have to suffer, if from the most intimate part of our being everything calls us to happiness? Why so much frustration? Why death, if we have been born for life? People have asked. And have asked God, since in some way when we seek the ultimate meaning of our being we are aiming toward God. But God kept an impenetrable silence.
On Christmas, God has spoken. We now have God’s response. God hasn’t spoken to us to say beautiful words about suffering. God doesn’t offer words. «The Word of God has become flesh». That is to say, more than giving us explanations, God has desired to suffer our questions, sufferings and powerlessness in our own flesh.
God doesn’t give explanations about suffering, but does suffer with us. God doesn’t respond to the why of so much pain and humiliation, but does humble God’s very Self. God doesn’t respond with words to the mystery of our existence, but is born in order to live God’s Self our human adventure.
Now we aren’t lost in our immense loneliness. We aren’t plunged into pure darkness. God is with us. There’s a light. «Now we aren’t alone, but joined together» (Leonardo Boff). God shares our existence.
This changes everything. God Self has entered into our life. It’s possible to live with hope. God shares our life, and with God we can walk toward salvation. That’s why for believers Christmas is always a call to be reborn. An invitation to revive joy, hope, solidarity, fraternity and complete confidence in the Father.
Let’s remember the words of the poet Angelus Silesius: «Though Christ would be born a thousand times in Bethlehem, as long as he isn’t born in you heart you will be lost for the great beyond: you will have been born in vain».
José Antonio Pagola
Translator: Fr. Jay VonHandorf
