As the festive garlands are put up the Christmas tree and the Nativity set is being carefully arranged on the top of our old piano \u2013 its usual spot, as the variety of Christmas Eve dishes-in-the making begin to take more and more space on\u00a0 kitchen countertops, I keep half \u2013thinking, half-praying \u201cfor who were you born, my\u00a0 Lord Jesus\u201d?\u00a0 for us \u2013the lukewarm Catholics? For the perfect? For the sinners? The unbelievers?<\/p>\n
We, the lukewarm first, since we create vast majority. Some of us are desperately, wide-eyed and panicky are trying to balance demands of work, family, tradition, faith \u2013 and definitely losing it.\u00a0 Others are simply giving up on the tradition (at least) because it seems too much.
\nThen there are also those who give up on You \u2013 mostly because they cannot put up with their own injuries, or own guilt. Wounds open deep and wide on the 24th of December.<\/p>\n
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\nIf You, my Lord, Great Transcendental God were born as a Child on that Holy Night for only the best, the most faithful, the perfect, those who\u00a0 have everything ready, just as the wise maidens had their lamps filled with surplus oil \u2013 then we, the rest, are lost on this\u00a0 December night and the holy Star that You lit for us does not dispel that darkness that surrounds us.
\nSmall things can teach as well as great theological lectures.<\/p>\n
As I look down on my half-burned cheesecake (the kitchen stove is well past its initial glory) which becomes an instant symbol of my own perpetual imperfection, I suddenly realised that there is hope for the likes of me. Hope. I have heard about it for years in sermons heard during Christmas \u2013 but only now it has struck me as reality. My hope is based on the Bethlehem Stable and its condition. The Stable was not vacuumed and mopped, and overhang with Christmas lights. Most probably the only light was an olive lamp, dim \u2013 and the Star outside, lit by God for His son. The Stable\u00a0 was also genuinely dirty as its usual inhabitants, the\u00a0 field animals are hardly clean.<\/p>\n
Whatever the Holy Family had for supper certainly did not consist either of 13 meatless dishes (as in Polish tradition) nor the roast turkey with cranberry gravy.
\nThe Christmas presents \u2013\u00a0 craze for\u00a0 which is a recent invention fuelled by greed and desperation of the post 2nd world war western civilisation \u2013 were what the Shepherds brought: simple items of food: cheese, bread? The Three Kings of Orient took their time coming, a year perhaps? So no gold yet.<\/p>\n
Jesus chose the Stable, not the palace –\u00a0\u00a0 to send a message that He is coming to all of us. He comes to his good and faithful children, such as the Shepherds \u2013 and loves their humble company. He also, however, comes to the unbelievers, the half-believers, the imperfect \u2013 those who drag their feet to the church on Sunday or remember only dimly when they were there last. He comes to alcoholics, drug addicts, sex \u2013 addicts, habitual liars, dishonest businessmen. He comes to the corrupt politicians, the euthanasia \u2013 pushers, the abortionists, the human traffickers, the drug dealers, to the jihadists.<\/p>\n
He comes \u2013 and especially to them \u2013 to the hurt, the abandoned, the lonely, the suffering, the hungry and the tired. He is here for the dying, those in pain, those who feel their life has been wasted. He is accessible to all who may but cast a single look at Him in his innocence and self-induced smallness\u00a0 and thus experience even a gleam of hope of God\u2019s mercy. This God- Child born in the Stable is our only true, real, concrete hope of happiness and peace, indeed. Merry Christmas to us all! As the festive garlands are put up the Christmas tree and the Nativity set is being carefully arranged on the top of our old piano \u2013 its usual spot, as the variety of Christmas Eve dishes-in-the making begin to take more and more space on\u00a0 kitchen countertops, I keep half \u2013thinking, half-praying \u201cfor who were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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\n<\/b><\/p>\nMaria Kozakiewicz<\/b><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"