Christmas! A celebration of the humanity of God and the divinity of man.

Text File

 

EASTER: Everyone CROSSES OVER, every day ...

Easter Sunday is an essential Christian holy day. Easter is a liturgical season lasting approximately six weeks, starting at the most significant Sunday of the Catholic liturgical year, when we celebrate Christians’ greatest confession of faith – proclaiming Christ risen and alive in the life of Christians and in the ecclesial community – and lasting until the solemnity of Pentecost.

Although it is the most significant annual holy day for Catholic Christians, the celebration of Easter has a universal message, i.e., a valid message for all men and women of good will, from any location, race, religious creed, political ideology, socio-educational level, social position, etc.

The Spanish word for Easter, PASCUA, comes from a Hebrew word meaning "CROSSING OVER". Easter was already celebrated by the men and women of the Old Testament when they commemorated the "crossing" of the Red Sea (cf. Ex 12-15), through which they were freed from the oppression to which they had been subjected for several centuries by the Egyptians. Later, the men and women of the Old Testament, converted now to Christianity, continued celebrating Easter, but with a new essence and meaning: the triumph and "transition" of life over death, the victory and "triumph" of good over sin in the person of Jesus Christ. When Jesus Christ was crucified (cf. Ac 5:30), the first Christians who witnessed his Resurrection and confessed and proclaimed him as Living God (Mt 28:6) in their midst; these same first disciples made the transition from the old to the new (2 Cor 5:17), from selfishness to love , from those who are capable of recognizing themselves as brothers of the same God and Father (Gal 4:6), from sadness to joy (Jn 20:1- 18), from disbelief to peace (Jn 20:27), from cowardice to courage, from life alone to an existence where we can share bread with others (Lk 24:13-35), from the oppression of a life lived according to the law to a life lived in service and freely and generously given toward others (Mt 16:25), especially to those most in need (Mt 25:31ss).

This was understood, lived and theologized, at the time, by men like Paul of Tarsus or John the Apostle when they wrote that Easter consists of the renewal of the mind (Rm 12:2) or in the "crossing over" from death to life, if we love one another (1 Jn 3:14ss).

It is enough to see and hear the news that the media and social networks give us to make us aware of all the deep problems and  serious crises and conflicts now facing mankind in all the institutions that make up society and in all its facets.

These are conflicts that touch and involve the individual, the family, society, international relations, etc. Problems, conflicts and crises that manifest themselves in the loss of the value and meaning of life, in the solitude of many, in the use of psycho-addictive substances , in the breaking down of values, in the impermanence of family structures (divorces, de facto unions, infidelities, lack of commitment in marital couples, job instability, lack of social security for the family in many countries, intergenerational conflicts between parents and children, etc.); in administrative corruption; in lack of public services; unemployment; the loss of prestige, leadership and credibility of the religious institutions governing moral and social values; the lack of social opportunities for a personal and family life of dignity; the loss in the  quality of education; the pursuit of personal and social fulfillment through hedonistic and pansexualist pleasure; by recognizing selfishness and materialism as supreme values and through abusive and confrontational power; in scandalous forms of social inequality; injustices; a thousand forms of violence and death; drug trafficking; arms races; exploitation, and irreversible damage to ecosystems; internal and international war conflicts; famines; epidemics and pandemics; moral relativism according to which nothing is worth anything or everything is equal; and, a total lack of the existential meaning of transcendence.

This list of personal, family, social, national and world ills represents the manifestations of a greater evil: the evil that lives within man, in the very heart of the human being (cf. Mk 7:21ss). The crisis of structures is first and foremost a crisis of men and women. The rotten fruits of our human coexistence and our societies are the product of bad trees, with diseased sap. Because "the tree is known by its fruits ... " (Mt 7:15ss).

The first and deepest causes of our personal and social discomfort must be sought in the gaps, deficiencies and losses within the human spirit. While we have made significant advances in science, in technology, in the capacity to telecommunicate amongst ourselves, in the globalization of markets and in the accumulation of great capital and lifestyles full of luxury and comfort, we have diminished the importance of the great principles and values ​​that define the essential, intrinsic, innate spirit of the human being, that is, everything that makes us truly "human" and not inhuman.

EASTER has a message and a call for all to change and renew from within, to improve everything within us. EASTER is an auspicious time to pause on our journey and to start again. In Pauline terminology, we may cross over from the old man to the new man (cf. Col 3:10).

Today, the greatest emergency facing society and humanity demands of every human being an "Easter" experience, that is, an experience of "crossing over" inhumane, sub-human, or less humane circumstances and conditions to reach those that are more humane and worthy of people.

The desire for everyone, around the planet, to build  better societies and a better world in which we achieve the happiness we relentlessly seek, challenges us all to a daily and ongoing Easter experience: that of being better human beings, better families, better professionals, better citizens in order to build the apocalyptic utopia of "a new heaven in a new land" (cf. Rev 21:1-8).

Thus, the celebration of Christian EASTER is not merely a Catholic liturgical celebration, but also a birthright of all humanity, a call to all and a daily task while we are living: to be men and women, new and renewed, capable of transforming ourselves, our personal lives, and through those, our institutions and social structures to be more just, more solidary, and more humane.

HAPPY EASTER!

 

Christmas and the Sacred Family

Christmas is an annual occurrence based on a historical and saving event: the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, which Christians commemorate liturgically using the same name. In a materialistic society like ours, Christmas has been converted into a season for buying and selling, for spending and consuming, for show-off and waste. And in this enormous consumer traffic, the message that we remember as Christians, the significance of which we celebrate on this occasion is manipulated, glossed over or lost, or even forgotten.

The Catholic Church, in its desire to make transparent its dedication and service to the family, has organized the worldwide convocations of families. The next World Meeting of Families will be celebrated in Philadelphia in 2015. Pope Francis, concerned about the crisis facing today's families, has initiated a series of consultations that will help to formulate guidelines in favor of the family unit, after the conclusions of the Extraordinary Synod and the realization of the upcoming Ordinary Synod to be held in October 2015. Christmas allows us to reflect on the plight of today’s families in light of the Sacred Family of our Lord Jesus.

The significance that Christmas has for the world in general and for Christians in particular is enormous. What we are celebrating is the birth of JESUS OF NAZARETH, who is for all peoples a model of Humanity and Divinity: since Jesus is both divine and profoundly human.

When we confess Jesus as God who has become human, we are confessing at the same time the final and definitive destiny to which all humanity is called: incarnating divinity in history, and in daily living humanizing the divine life. At Christmas time, therefore, we celebrate the joyful and hopeful certainty that in the birth of Jesus, God has shown that he wants to live with us always, revealing in himself the Way, the Truth and the Life to which we have been called.

The historical fact of Christmas occurs in the context of a family. Among the many aspects that give meaning to the commemoration of the first Christmas, the value that God accorded the family in the birth of Jesus takes on special meaning among us.

We are experiencing in our times a profound human crisis in all aspects. The serious problems that are evident in this crisis reveal a more profound and definitive crisis in the very heart of human beings: a de-humanization that is contrary to all that is meant or implied in the message of Christmas. Yet, at the same time, the serious social problems that emerge from the heart of people have their origin in a profound crisis in the family.

There is an extensive list of great conflicts which today threaten the family model proposed on that first Christmas Eve and presented in the proclamation of the Catholic Church in the Western world:

The generational gap between parents and children in a world that is rapidly changing.

The breakups, divorces and rapid and easy annulments in “express” fashion.

Unfaithfulness in a pan-sexual society where such is proposed and stimulated.

The lack of commitment in a hedonistic society that delights in levity, changes of fashion, meaninglessness, easy come-and-go, throw-aways, appearances that are purely superficial.

The world of academia and labor that separates, alienates and disintegrates families.

“Machismo” and feminism.

The pretended scientific manipulation of God’s designs concerning creation and family life.

Abortion.

Promiscuous use of tobacco, alcohol, and drugs.

The senselessness of life in a society that quickly destroys the will to live, when the end of life is reduced to something merely material and historical, masking the transcendent vision of men, of the world and of history, etc….

In a world that pleads for the plurality of ideas and life style as well as respect for individual liberty and human rights, the Truth — under that pretext — should not be denied, confused or diluted in the midst of the rash of individual, small and almost always selfish pocket versions of truth. It is the Church’s responsibility, on the basis of the Good News contained in the gospel for every man and woman of good will, to proclaim every day and, especially at Christmas time, that every person has the right to be born and “to grow in grace and wisdom” in the bosom of a family constituted by a father, a mother and children: a family model in which are replicated and lived out the relationships defined as parental love, and filial and fraternal love, that we recognize and venerate in the very heart of the Holy Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The troubling statistics that cry out to us concerning the millions of boys and girls that seek to “grow” and “mature” in “homes” that are dysfunctional, with a single parent, or “substitute” homes, with grandparents and other relatives or in government institutions that try to “replace” inexistent families, sound an alarm that warns us of something that is occurring in our communities as well as an urgent challenge for us to give value to living out the model of Christian family suggested in the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Today, as never before, there is a nostalgia for Nazareth.

Nostalgia for homes where parents and children live together in harmony.

Nostalgia for homes like the example of Nazareth: where the parents love and fulfill God’s will, loving and nourishing the the life of their children.

Homes in which the children fulfill God’s will, obeying their parents.

Homes that tend toward the construction of a world of fraternal relationships lived out first at home in family relationships.

Homes in which love and respect prevail over the circumstances of life that are always difficult and always changing.

Homes with parents that are dedicated to the care of their children, and where the children are attentive and devoted to their parents.

Homes that are true domestic churches, initiating the experience of the church and seedbeds of permanent evangelization.

Homes in which parents and children grow in their humanity, cooperating with the creative work of God through their daily tasks.

Families that are true homes, that is to say, where the home fires burn with love that is able to warm and illuminate a world so often cold and in darkness.

I join with you in these days in which as Christians we live with the memory of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. I join in the joy of the world because “to us is born a son, a child has been given to us” that bears the name “Emanuel, meaning God is with us” and I encourage you to extend into all our homes, our family groups, our communities, the great, good, sacred and eternal lessons which we can learn and apply in the life of our family, illustrated in the home of the Sacred Family of Nazareth, on this Christmas and always.