God keeps on saving people in history. Christmas is the beginning of this salvation history. And so, in turning once again to the episode of Christ’s birth at Bethlehem, we come not to recall Christ’s birth twenty centuries ago, but to live that birth here, in the twenty-first century, this year, in our own Christmas here in India.
The Council says humanity’s mystery can be explained only in the mystery of the God who became human. If people want to look into their own mystery – the meaning of their pain, of their work, of their anxieties, of their suffering, of their hope – let them put themselves next to Christ. If they accomplish what Christ accomplished – doing the Father’s will, filling themselves with the life that Christ gives the world – they are fulfilling themselves as true human beings. If I find, on comparing myself with Christ, that my life is a contrast, the opposite of his, then my life is a disaster.
If what the Council expects of us is true, then, no one can celebrate a genuine Christmas without being truly poor. The self-sufficient, the proud, those who, because they have everything, look down on others, those who have no need even of God – for them there will be no Christmas. Only the poor, the hungry, the marginalized, the oppressed, those who need someone to come on their behalf, will have that someone. That someone is God, Emmanuel, God-with-us. Without poverty of spirit there can be no abundance of God.
If God has come for the poor and marginalised then all the stuff that our culture identifies with Christmas-the trees, the lights, the shopping, the dinners and Santa himself-may be just a diversion for us. The Christmas trappings are not bad in themselves. But they may distract us from the uncomfortable truth that Christmas isn’t a celebration that the rich and comfortable can fully celebrate.
Christmas for the poor and the humiliated of our world is the beginning of a revolution that lifts them up. Mary our mother had already said why God sent the child she bore: “He has brought down the rulers from their thrones, and has exalted those who were humble. He has filled the hungry with good things; but sent away the rich empty handed.” (Luke 1:52-3)
If what Mary said is true, then the hungry kids in Africa have more to celebrate than we do. The children in our slums and rural India have more to celebrate than we do. The poor can rejoice because God so identifies with them, that in Christ God entered the world as one of them. That is the real Christmas. We who are rich and powerful in the world can acknowledge Christmas intellectually, but it isn’t good news for us in the same way.
Our celebration of Christmas can grow richer and more genuine as we identify and accept in ourselves our points of poverty and humiliation. The place of our greatest weakness is the humble stable where Christ can appear in our lives. Christmas shows us that our pain and humiliation are not things to reject but are windows through which God’s love and grace can enter.
God has in his goodness, incarnated himself even to the concrete events of the injustices, tortures, humiliations, rejections of our own sad history. That is where we are to find our God.
Advent time is given to us to remind ourselves that we need to prepare for Christmas. Ample time is given to us by the Church before we could worthily celebrate the birth of the great God amidst the simplest and the poor.
But what are we going to prepare? How are we going to prepare ourselves for Christmas? I am sure there will plans and preparations for clothing, cakes, sweets, decorations and dinner with close friends. In a parish level there might be a greater preparation. There might be an elevating singing with a well trained choir, an elaborate liturgy, and there might even be a mighty crib for baby Jesus.
While all these are needed for an external celebration, do we feel the need for preparing ourselves during this advent by making ourselves simple? Do we include the poor, the simple and the marginalised for whom God planned the incarnation?
But see who is missing! In all our preparations, and later in our celebrations, the poor will be missing. We shouldn’t be surprised if Jesus himself, the protagonist of this great celebration, is missing. It might even turn out to be our celebration setting Jesus aside, to make our celebrations more comfortable and enjoyable. We can never meaningfully celebrate Christmas without including Jesus who is in the poor.Let us carefully see who is missing in
Thursday, October 23, 2008
“Ephphatha” “ Be opened”
“Ephphatha” – “Be opened” These were the repeated words in the homily of Pope Benedict XVI, which he delivered at Sunday mass on September 10, delivered before an estimated 250,000 people in Munich.
The Gospel reading he used, speaks of Jesus’s healing of a man born deaf and mute. Jesus is concerned for the suffering, those pushed to the margins of society. He obviously points out the goal of all our activity: “ To speak of God is to speak of society.”
There is not only a physical deafness which largely cuts people off from social life; there is also a ‘hardness of hearing’ where God is concerned, and this is something from which we particularly suffer in our own times. In other words, we are no longer able to hear God – there are too many different frequencies filling our ears. Along with this disability we are no longer able to converse with him and to him. We risk losing our inner senses.
Jesus’s healing the deaf man by saying “Ephphatha” – “Be opened” might be of a distant past; He continues to do the same thing, even today. At our Baptism he touched each of us and said “Ephphatha” – “Be opened”. He says the same thing for the salesians and the members of the salesian family today, “Ephphatha” – “Be opened,” through the call of the Rector Major to start afresh from Don Bosco and to be open to hear Don Bosco and the young.
We are no longer able to hear Don Bosco and the young. We are too busy with our own plans for ourselves and our institutions while the institutions meant for the young are hardly open for the young.
Pope in his homily said, “ Social issues and the Gospel are inseparable.” Surprisingly Don Bosco and the young are inseparable. That is why he had as his motto: Da Mihi Animas Cetera Tolle - Give me Souls and take away the rest. Don Bosco was willing to give all his time and energy for the poor boys. A great driving force indeed!
At a time when the west is stagnant with regard to vocations to salesian life, the call of the Rector Major comes as the words of Jesus, “Ephphatha” – “Be opened” to all of us, the members of the salesian family in South Asia.
People in Africa and Asia admire the scientific and technical prowess of the west. At the same time they are frightened of the controlling rationality behind that outward elegance. When we bring people only knowledge, ability, technical competence and tools, we bring them too little. All too quickly the mechanisms of violence and evil take over. We need to give to the young the peace and tranquility that a serene interior life can offer. The call of the Rector Major compels us to extend our support to the young who really need God and Don Bosco back.
We, the salesian family, just celebrated the centenary of the arrival of Salesians to India. We are happy about the achievements in terms of technical advancement and the infrastructural development and yet we need to achieve much in terms of the spirituality and the meaning system of the young who are so promising and yet so weak in nature.
Time is right for us to reach out to the remotest corners of the earth. Let us reaffirm this commitment we have for Don Bosco and for the young. Let all our inner sensibilities be opened for this call. “Ephphatha” – “Be opened”
The Gospel reading he used, speaks of Jesus’s healing of a man born deaf and mute. Jesus is concerned for the suffering, those pushed to the margins of society. He obviously points out the goal of all our activity: “ To speak of God is to speak of society.”
There is not only a physical deafness which largely cuts people off from social life; there is also a ‘hardness of hearing’ where God is concerned, and this is something from which we particularly suffer in our own times. In other words, we are no longer able to hear God – there are too many different frequencies filling our ears. Along with this disability we are no longer able to converse with him and to him. We risk losing our inner senses.
Jesus’s healing the deaf man by saying “Ephphatha” – “Be opened” might be of a distant past; He continues to do the same thing, even today. At our Baptism he touched each of us and said “Ephphatha” – “Be opened”. He says the same thing for the salesians and the members of the salesian family today, “Ephphatha” – “Be opened,” through the call of the Rector Major to start afresh from Don Bosco and to be open to hear Don Bosco and the young.
We are no longer able to hear Don Bosco and the young. We are too busy with our own plans for ourselves and our institutions while the institutions meant for the young are hardly open for the young.
Pope in his homily said, “ Social issues and the Gospel are inseparable.” Surprisingly Don Bosco and the young are inseparable. That is why he had as his motto: Da Mihi Animas Cetera Tolle - Give me Souls and take away the rest. Don Bosco was willing to give all his time and energy for the poor boys. A great driving force indeed!
At a time when the west is stagnant with regard to vocations to salesian life, the call of the Rector Major comes as the words of Jesus, “Ephphatha” – “Be opened” to all of us, the members of the salesian family in South Asia.
People in Africa and Asia admire the scientific and technical prowess of the west. At the same time they are frightened of the controlling rationality behind that outward elegance. When we bring people only knowledge, ability, technical competence and tools, we bring them too little. All too quickly the mechanisms of violence and evil take over. We need to give to the young the peace and tranquility that a serene interior life can offer. The call of the Rector Major compels us to extend our support to the young who really need God and Don Bosco back.
We, the salesian family, just celebrated the centenary of the arrival of Salesians to India. We are happy about the achievements in terms of technical advancement and the infrastructural development and yet we need to achieve much in terms of the spirituality and the meaning system of the young who are so promising and yet so weak in nature.
Time is right for us to reach out to the remotest corners of the earth. Let us reaffirm this commitment we have for Don Bosco and for the young. Let all our inner sensibilities be opened for this call. “Ephphatha” – “Be opened”
Gift your child reading habit
We give gifts to our friends, relatives and loved ones. Often we wonder what gift can be given to our dear ones. Particularly, when we take time to visit a family with kids, we always stop at a departmental store to buy toys sweets, toffees, pizzas etc..., to be given to their children. How many of us really pause to think for a while to buy a good collection of reading material to them? As parents you can give books for your children as their birthday and Christmas presents or when they excel well in school. Let us remember the habit of reading can be a life time gift for your child.
Remember the good old habit of traditional families to narrate the history of the family; the struggles and joys of yesteryears to their children to carryon the great legacy which the family cherishes. Impressionable minds can be nurtured and moulded in ways more than one. But books and the printed word are among the best tools used for reaching out to a child in today’s hurry burry world. Despite the deep penetrating reach of the visual media, books have a definite edge over other mediums of communication and entertainment. Child psychologists and counselors have often stressed the importance of the reading habit in modern-day children.
As we realise that reading habit is important for your family, start reading as this habit will sooner or later influence your surrounding. Spending even ten minutes a day with your children will make them love both the time for reading and the time to attach with you. If you include expense for books in your budget you and children should often visit the bookshop or book fair. Even visiting any libraries that are available in your neighbourhood, schools, universities, clubs, etc. will increase their love for books. Sharing books will increase their knowledge without costing you much. When you help your children to make their own books, it is cheap but exciting. They can draw or cut pictures from magazines and write their own stories according to their imagination. It increases their power to actualise.
There is another way that will make children interested in books. Usually children like watching cartoons like “Nemo, Lion King, Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh”, some traditional legends, puppets and stories. It is very interesting if they watch the movie on show and then read the books.
Reading habit should be the example for your children because deeds speak louder than words. When your children see you reading they will know that reading is a good habit.
Do not wait until your children are able to read to give them books. Start as soon as they were born. If you often communicate with your babies and read stories for them, their language ability will increase. It is never too late for your child to start reading. Preferably, catch the child young. Bring him other colorful books, so that reading becomes a favorite pastime. The parent has also got to read enough in order to become a model for the little one. And not to forget, family reading is the best way to grow. Ever remember your initial sessions with your grandma! Bed time reading is considered the best quality time spent with a kid. Psychiatrists feel that bed time reading helps to build strong bonding with the child
Language is a gift for a child and books give this gift in abundance. Children’s brain is easier to absorb language than an adult. Hence another benefit of reading books is they can learn foreign language very easily. If a child is raised up by a couple of different nationalities, the child will be able to speak two languages of his parents. Because of children’s ability to absorb new language fast, you can use foreign language story books to introduce and teach them the languages.
Reading a book aloud can be a good exercise not just for memorization but also for improvement of speech and vocabulary.Reading sharpens the thought processes of a child It increases his or her attention span. It gives them the faculty of thinking and understanding.
So by investing your time and your kids’ time for reading good books, you invest better future for your family.
Remember the good old habit of traditional families to narrate the history of the family; the struggles and joys of yesteryears to their children to carryon the great legacy which the family cherishes. Impressionable minds can be nurtured and moulded in ways more than one. But books and the printed word are among the best tools used for reaching out to a child in today’s hurry burry world. Despite the deep penetrating reach of the visual media, books have a definite edge over other mediums of communication and entertainment. Child psychologists and counselors have often stressed the importance of the reading habit in modern-day children.
As we realise that reading habit is important for your family, start reading as this habit will sooner or later influence your surrounding. Spending even ten minutes a day with your children will make them love both the time for reading and the time to attach with you. If you include expense for books in your budget you and children should often visit the bookshop or book fair. Even visiting any libraries that are available in your neighbourhood, schools, universities, clubs, etc. will increase their love for books. Sharing books will increase their knowledge without costing you much. When you help your children to make their own books, it is cheap but exciting. They can draw or cut pictures from magazines and write their own stories according to their imagination. It increases their power to actualise.
There is another way that will make children interested in books. Usually children like watching cartoons like “Nemo, Lion King, Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh”, some traditional legends, puppets and stories. It is very interesting if they watch the movie on show and then read the books.
Reading habit should be the example for your children because deeds speak louder than words. When your children see you reading they will know that reading is a good habit.
Do not wait until your children are able to read to give them books. Start as soon as they were born. If you often communicate with your babies and read stories for them, their language ability will increase. It is never too late for your child to start reading. Preferably, catch the child young. Bring him other colorful books, so that reading becomes a favorite pastime. The parent has also got to read enough in order to become a model for the little one. And not to forget, family reading is the best way to grow. Ever remember your initial sessions with your grandma! Bed time reading is considered the best quality time spent with a kid. Psychiatrists feel that bed time reading helps to build strong bonding with the child
Language is a gift for a child and books give this gift in abundance. Children’s brain is easier to absorb language than an adult. Hence another benefit of reading books is they can learn foreign language very easily. If a child is raised up by a couple of different nationalities, the child will be able to speak two languages of his parents. Because of children’s ability to absorb new language fast, you can use foreign language story books to introduce and teach them the languages.
Reading a book aloud can be a good exercise not just for memorization but also for improvement of speech and vocabulary.Reading sharpens the thought processes of a child It increases his or her attention span. It gives them the faculty of thinking and understanding.
So by investing your time and your kids’ time for reading good books, you invest better future for your family.
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