SOLEMN FEAST OF CHRISTMAS
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DIVINE EMBRACE
After a long time away from the
province, a group of cousins came to visit their grandparents living in the
farm. Seeing them at the backyard working on their plot of vegetables, the
children rushed to lovingly embrace the old folks. The grandparents were
surprised and overjoyed to see the kids, but on receiving their embraces, they
felt undeserving. “Stop that, children. We are sweaty and smelly. We don’t want
you to have dirt on your clothes.”
An embrace is one of the warmest,
most assuring, and most encouraging gestures of love and support. You do not
embrace just anybody you meet on the streets. It is rare that you embrace a
stranger except for some outburst of excited emotions. We intentionally embrace
the people we love, care for, and respect.
There are people who do not get
an embrace. There are many people who long for an embrace. Beggars at the
roadside, homeless street people, children in orphanages, abandoned old folks,
prisoners, homebound sick people - don’t you think that these following people
hope that one day, somebody will stop and notice them, speak to them, and wrap
their arms around them in love?
At Christmas time, we remember
the greatest embrace the world has ever experienced. God, in his Son Jesus the
Lord, embraced all humanity with perfect love and compassion. The Incarnation,
God becoming flesh, is a lofty mystery, but its meaning can be comprehended
simply by the analogy of an embrace.
We are sinners, flawed and
imperfect people. We are conscious of the dirt and garbage in our lives. Our
transgressions are always before us. Like the farming grandparents, we can say
we are unworthy of an embrace. But in his goodness, in his unequalled love, God
opened his arms and enveloped us in fatherly acceptance and forgiveness.
Christmas is a constant reminder
that though we do not deserve divine attention because we have strayed away
from the Lord, the Lord has decided to express his love for us by embracing the
whole of our earthly life (our birth, our growth, our death), our human
poverty, so that one day he can share with us his glory.
Let us take some time to pray and
reflect these days, imagining that God is embracing us and whatever situation
we find ourselves in. May we allow him to do so and return the gesture, in our
imperfect and limited way. Just
feel his love… and give out a Christmas hug to a needy one!
A BLESSED CHRISTMAS TO ALL!
