TACLOBAN CITY—The season of Christmas is not all about gifts but all about self-giving.
This was the message of Fr. Lito Maraya, rector of the Saint John the Evangelist School of Theology in this city, in his Christmas Eve homily.
In this time when not everyone can afford to buy gifts for others, the priest urged the people to instead give themselves as a gift to others by doing good deeds.
“As the song says, ‘Take time to be kind to one and all.’ You take time to share your joy, your talent, your patience, your peace, your forgiveness, especially to those who hurt you; take time to share your friendship,” Maraya said.
“When we share our smile, our patience, our forgiveness, then Christ is truly with us,” he said.
Maraya, likewise, emphasized the spirit of Christmas embodied by gift-giving, which he described as a Christian tradition.
“Why do we give gifts during Christmas? Is it because we are rich? Is it because we are generous? Probably, but not to all. Is it because we are good persons? I believe, yes,” he said.
Maraya explained that in the nine days prior to Christmas, churchgoers had been hearing about Mary, Joseph, Zachariah and Elizabeth, who were filled with God once they received Jesus.
“If we have received Jesus, we don’t need anything but to share what we have received,” he exhorted.
“We give gifts, because it is presumed that we already have received the Lord; that is why the joy of Christmas is basically religious, spiritual and not material,” Maraya said.
“The joy of Christmas is in the Lord. And once we have received Christ, then we have everything because He is the best gift we have received,” he added.
What to do when you don’t get what you hope for
What do you do when expectations or carefully crafted plans change? Throw a pity party? Sulk?
According to Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle, you should continue to cling on to hope.
The prelate said when plans or hopes do not turn out as expected, everyone is called to “be open to God’s ways of fulfilling our hopes.”
“That’s the very nature of hope, to be open,” added Tagle, who spoke to thousands attending Jesuit Communications’ annual Advent recollection on December 12 at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
‘God can do wonders’
“When [something] can be dictated upon, it’s already closed. There’s no more hope, because you already know,” he said in Filipino.
Tagle said everyone has hopes, but when things do not turn out as expected, one’s hope in God should go on.
“Hoping is not the certainty of my human sight…. That is the lesson that John the Baptist is telling us. We hope intensely, we hope for people, especially the youth…. God can do wonders. Keep on hoping,” Tagle said, basing his entire reflection on the Gospel passage that shows John the Baptist’s apparent doubts that Jesus was the Messiah.
Trusting in Jesus
Far from being passive, Tagle said, to hope is a function of active faith in Jesus.
“We need to participate in hope… Keep on hoping and believing that God will accomplish it… The center of the faith is Jesus.”
“Hoping is not that easy. Like John the Baptist, I continue hoping even when I do not see. But I am assured that something good will happen not so much becaue of the results, but because in God I put my hope,” the prelate explained.
Eileen Nazareno-Ballesteros and Nirva’ana Ella Delacruz/CBCPNews
Image credits: AP/Aaron Favila