Maravi

Reflections over Christmas

Reflections over Christmas
Written by Editor

As we celebrate Christmas today, we are prompted to think of the economic crisis, the employment situation that is distressing our people.

And may those who are able to have enough to eat and drink today and over this Christmas period, those who are able to work, be grateful and open their hearts generously to those who instead, have employment and financial difficulties. May the Child Jesus, who on today’s Holy Night of Bethlehem became man to share in our difficulties, look kindly upon those who are harshly tried by this economic crisis and inspire sentiments of authentic solidarity in everyone.

We shouldn’t all forget that what the fight against poverty really needs are men and women who live in a profoundly fraternal way and are able to accompany individuals, families and communities on journeys of authentic human development.
For our Christian readers, we invite them to fix their gaze on the ineffable mystery that Mary treasured for nine months in her womb: the mystery of God who is made man. This, for them, is the first foundation of redemption. The second is the death and resurrection of Jesus and these two inseparable aspects express a single divine plan: to save humanity and its history, assuming them fully by taking the entire burden of all the evil that oppresses it. Beyond its historical dimension, this mystery of salvation is said also to be a cosmic dimension: Christ is the son of grace who, with His life, “transfigures and inflames the expectant universe”.

Let us learn from Mary and Joseph the secret of reflection in order to taste the joy of Christmas. Let us welcome with faith the redeemer who has come to be with us, the word of God’s love for humanity of every epoch.

Let us open our eyes so that we notice our sad companions and the many children in the world who are suffering hunger, illness and ignorance. Let us do everything possible to make this world more beautiful and a better place for everyone.

What our Christians can appropriately contribute is a vision of the human being and of humanity that situates the process of development within the human vocation.

Through the course of the centuries, human beings have laboured to better the circumstances of their lives through a monumental amount of individual and collective effort. To Christians, this should be settled: such humanity is in accord with Christ’s will. In the design of God, all human beings are called upon to develop and fulfill themselves, for every life is a vocation. Human beings are called upon to develop themselves. In this perspective, we understand development as liberation, with all that implies, even in the economic sphere.

Human emancipation is included within this vocation. The vocation, as we know, is to commune with God, to being a child of God – it is to this that we are being called (Eph. 1:5). To have a vocation means to have been created and chosen to be children of God. But this is not a question of an individual vocation or individual salvation. Rather, all human beings are called to this full development, which in the strong biblical sense they call convocation. Human beings are convoked and the process of development lies within that convocation and all are called to this fullness of development.

If this is true, in full, integral, and authentic development liberates human beings, then it is included within the human vocation.

The call of God includes all of reality and provides us with a radical change of outlook, a new way of evaluating the things of this world. This world is not a trampoline to leap upward to God, nor is it a stage on which to play a role – that is, a reality that does not interest us but allows us to be spiritual beings and to choose within it to be good or evil. No. If development is human fulfillment, it is part of our vocation, and all things have value.

There are no static obligations of charity that are somehow independent of the content of our actions of love. The world is not a “test”, nor is it a stage. The work of constructing the world, the work itself, which is brought to realisation, has a salvific value. If development exists within our vocation, it has the value of salvation. Not only what is done for the love of God, but everything which contributes to growth in humanity, everything which makes a person more human and contributes to human liberation, contains the value of salvation and communion with Christ. We say this because development itself is said to “pass from less human conditions to more human conditions”. And by less human conditions, we mean the lack of material necessities for those who are without the minimum essentials for life, the moral duties of those who are mutilated by selfishness. That is less human. Less human also means oppressive social structures whether due to the abuses of ownership or to the abuses of power, to the exploitation of workers or to unjust transactions. Thus “less human” are oppressive structures, something Christians are generally unaware of. The structure itself is oppressive, although naturally human beings are responsible for it. But let us not say too quickly that we can only change structures by changing human beings. Faced with contemporary humanism, which desires a change of structures, we are sometimes content to recall that human beings are inclined to sin. Certainly everything is connected, and it is right for a vision to show the connections between these different aspects. But the vision should not say that first we must change human beings in order afterward to change the structures. After Karl Marx, it is no longer possible to say first change the human beings and then the structures. Our vision must be able to see everything in a synthetic way. Human behaviour is conditioned by the structures that human beings have created. It is a question, then, of simultaneous action on human beings and structures.

As regards the passage from less human to more human, the passage from misery towards possession of necessities, victory over social scourges, we say this is the growth of knowledge, the acquisition of culture, increased esteem for the dignity of others and turning toward the spirit of poverty. More human is co-operation for the common good, the will and desire for peace. And for Christians, more human, too, is the acknowledgement by human beings of absolute values and of God. Finally, and especially, more human is faith, a gift of God accepted by the goodwill of human beings and unity in the charity of Christ, who calls us all to share as sons in the life of the giving God, the Father of all.

The creation of a just and fraternal society is the salvation of human beings, if by salvation we mean the passage from the less human to the more human. Salvation, therefore, is not purely “religious”.

In all this that we are saying, we are only retrieving the most ancient tradition of Christianity.

None of what we have said can be achieved without the collaboration of all in the framework of a solidarity which includes everyone, beginning with the most neglected. But at the same time, solidarity demands a readiness to accept the sacrifices necessary for the good of the whole community.

We wish everyone a holy and peaceful Christmas. Happy Christmas!

posted by MrK @ 10:40 AM