Christmas, The Celebration Of Human Existence Beginning Anew

Fr Dexter Brereton, CSSp

With the birth of our Saviour in the stable at Bethlehem, God the Word enters into time, and human existence begins anew. This is why the very beautiful prologue of John’s Gospel, which we read every Christmas morning starts with the very same words as the book of Genesis which describes God’s creation of the world, “In the beginning…” With the birth of His beloved Son, God begins creation anew and the story of humanity takes on a decisive new direction.

A long time ago an older brother in the congregation to which I belong said that “as long as we believe in the possibility of salvation, then we have to believe that people can change.” As we look around us, do we believe that people can change? Do we really believe in the possibility of salvation, that sins can be forgiven, that enemies can be reconciled, or that injustices be corrected? Those who accept the message of the Gospel that the light has come into the darkness of the world, are given fresh new energy and inspiration to keep trying to transform the society around us, to make of our homes and villages places of love and brotherhood and sisterhood. To refuse to believe in the light is to surrender to the tiredness and despair that comes with a human life that is ultimately leading nowhere. At this point I wish to take a little time to address the issue of so many Catholics who, in the aftermath of the intense phase of the COVID pandemic, have chosen, for various reasons, not to return to worship. Whatever the motivations, I see this as a truly TRAGIC choice. I have been thinking about it and it struck me that coming to weekly mass is an important habit which is inculcated into us from the time we are young. It is only through this constant attentiveness to God that we manage to build a relationship with the Lord and to build some kind of spiritual life. Love that is not nurtured, is love that dies. Once we become disaccustomed to coming to mass every week, then it is all the more difficult to restart this habit that we have lost and the voice of God becomes drowned out in our lives.

Maybe you have heard a distant relative say: “priests and prayers can’t do anything for me!” Such a way of thinking is to make oneself and one’s effort the centre of salvation. I can save myself, I do not need God, nor do I need other people. There are those who believe that religious faith is only for the frightened and the weak-minded. But the easiest thing in the world is to mock, to ridicule, and destroy…it requires no great courage. It takes enormous reserves of courage to get up again after every fall, to forgive someone who has hurt you badly; or even to overlook the faults of the sinner. For those of us, who follow Jesus, we draw strength and comfort from this phrase from the prologue: “But to all who did accept him, he gave power to become children of God…the Greek word for power is “dunamis” and along with power comes “exousia”, the Greek word for ‘authority.’ The early Christians had this sense of being given great authority over all the enemies of the Gospel: human persecutors, death, sickness, laziness addiction. The power that we receive to become the children of God is also a power to see clearly who and where our true enemies are. As a people, too often we in Trinidad and Tobago, have made enemies of each other, when our true enemies are self-hatred, jealousy, envy, and despair. These are the things that truly break us down and cause our lives to wither.

This Christmas, we entrust ourselves once again to Jesus, the Living Word of God whose birth we celebrate. We pray that he may continue to give is the “power to become children of God.”