By Fr. Roy Cimagala
INDEED, a day of great joy! The Son of God, the perfect image that God has of himself and the image after whom we are patterned, is finally born to be with us and to give us “the way, the truth and the life” that is proper to us.
We should have no doubt about who we really are. That God has to become man to save us from our state of exile and alienation due to our sin, can only mean that we are meant to be God’s image and likeness, sharers of his divine life and nature. We need to start to level up, leaving behind the gaps about our true identity and dignity.
This can happen if we allow Christ to be born in us. That’s what he likes to do in the first place. He is just waiting for us to correspond properly to his desire. Yes, Christ wants to be born in us. That, in a nutshell, is the meaning of Christmas. All the festivities and merrymaking associated with this day should point us to this happy truth. We have to correspond to it and act on it as best that we can.
Let’s hope that the beautiful decorations we have everywhere, especially the Christmas crèche, Christmas tree, lanterns, the Santa Clauses, etc., lead us to this realization, instead of being distractions or, worse, a sweet poison to our soul.
Let’s hope that when we look at the Child Jesus in the belen, we get moved to thank him for wanting to be born in us, and to promise him that we will do our part to welcome and receive him in the best way we can.
Christ wants to be born in us because he is our savior who comes to re-make us after we have fallen into sin. Let’s remember that we are children of God, made in his image and likeness.
Christ wants to be born in us so he can start and continue with his work of redemption which takes place in the whole span of our earthly life. He wants to grow and live with us, experience what we experience so he can guide us.
But do we welcome him? Are we willing to have Christ in us, to work in us and with us? Do we actively cooperate in his redemptive work in us? Are we willing to be another Christ, “alter Christus,” as we ought to be, so we can recover and enrich the dignity God intended for us?
We have to convince ourselves that it is very doable for us to allow Christ to be born in us. This is no fantasy. On the part of God, he is already giving us everything that we need for this wonderful divine will of his to be carried out.
On our part, it is also very doable, because all we have to do is to be open to this divine will and act on it as best that we can. Christ can be born in us by allowing him to enter first into our mind and heart which are the proper places for him to be with us.
Let us get our mind and heart to be engaged with him, knowing him more, increasingly developing the ability to know his will and ways, being docile to his promptings that we can discern in our consciences. And from there, let’s make Christ reign and rule over all our other faculties—emotions, passions, appetites, urges, instincts, etc.
Email: roycimagala@gmail.com
