December 7, 2021
It’s Christmas every time
you smile to a brother
and you offer your hand.
It’s Christmas every time
you keep silent
to listen to the other person.
It’s Christmas every time
you do not accept those principles
that push the oppressed to the margins of society.
It’s Christmas every time
you hope with those who despair
in physical and spiritual poverty.
It’s Christmas every time
you recognize with humility
your limits and your weakness.
It’s Christmas every time
you allow the Lord to be born again,
so you can donate it to others.
*
At Christmas Christ comes to us like a little child, small and helpless, so much in need of all that love can give. Are we ready to receive Him? Before the birth of Jesus His parents asked for a simple dwelling place, but there was none. If Mary and Joseph were looking for a home for Jesus, would they choose your house and all it holds?
Today there is so much trouble in the world, and I think that much of it begins at home. The world is suffering because there is no peace in the family.
We have so many thousands of broken homes. We must make our homes centers of compassion and forgiveness, and so bring peace.
Make your house, your family, another Nazareth, where love, peace, joy, and unity reign, for love begins at home. You must start there and make your home a center of love. You must be the hope of eternal happiness to your wife, your husband, your child, to your grandfather, your grandmother, to whoever is connected to you.
The home is where the mother is. Once I found a child on the streets. I took him to our children’s home and gave him a bath and some clean clothes, but he ran away. He was found again by somebody else, but he ran away a second time. After we found him, I said to the sisters, “Please follow that child and see where he goes when he runs away.”
When the child ran away a third time they followed him, and there, under a tree, was his mother. She had put stones under a small earthenware vessel and was cooking some food she had found. The sister asked the child, “Why did you run away from the home?” And the child answered, “But this is my home because this is where my mother is.”
That was home. The food that was found was all right because Mother had cooked it. It was Mother who hugged the child, Mother who wanted the child—and the child had his mother. And between a wife and a husband it is the same. …
Let us pray that we shall be able to welcome Jesus at Christmas—not in the cold manger of our heart but in a heart full of love and humanity, a heart warm with love for one another.
*
Advent is like springtime in nature when everything is renewed, fresh, and healthy. Advent refreshes us, makes us healthy and able to receive Christ in whatever form he may come to us. At Christmas, he comes as a little child, small, helpless, and in need of his mother and all that a mother’s love can give. His mother’s humility enabled her to serve. If we really want God to fill us, we must empty ourselves through humility of all the selfishness within us.
Christmas was at the centre of Mother Teresa’s spirituality. Christmas is the event which has given meaning to the story of the universe. It reminds us of the birth of Christ who became a human being, just like one of the billions who have populated and will populate the earth. This was a choice made out of love, to “redeem” humanity, to restore the damage done by Adam’s disobedience in the Garden of Eden at the beginning of time.
Mother Teresa saw the condition of all mankind in the fragile and defenseless child born in a stable in Bethlehem; and equally she saw the Baby Jesus in all human beings. She saw Him especially among the poorest of the poor, because those who suffer the most and have nothing are most like the baby born in Bethlehem. She saw Him in abandoned children, as these innocent creatures represented Baby Jesus’ condition even more clearly.
I have spent many Christmases with Mother Teresa. But I remember one in particular. I was in Calcutta, India. Mother Teresa invited me to dinner on 24 December, Christmas Eve, to celebrate with her and the other nuns. It was a meagre meal as is usual for the Missionaries of Charity, but rich in joy, affection, and fraternity. The atmosphere was so cordial that we almost forgot to eat.
At a certain point, I heard a knocking on the door. One of the nuns went to see who it was and returned with a basket covered in cloth. “A woman gave it to me and then rushed off,” she said. As she gave the basket to Mother Teresa she added, “She was probably a benefactor who wanted to donate some food to us for Christmas.”
Mother Teresa removed the cloth and her eyes lit up. “Jesus has arrived,” she said with a beautiful smile. The other nuns ran to see. In the basket there was a sleeping baby boy. He was an abandoned baby who was a few days old; the woman who had brought him, perhaps his mother, was unable to look after him and so entrusted him to the nuns; a frequent occurrence in Calcutta. The nuns squealed with joy and held onto the basket, moved by the sight of the sleeping baby. Their cries woke him up, and he began to cry. Mother Teresa picked him up, smiled, and yet at the same time had tears in her eyes. “Look, now we can say that our Christmas is complete,” she said. “Baby Jesus has come to us. We must thank God for this wonderful gift.” A powerful emotion emanated from her, a protective force which was her great love.—Renzo Allegri, quoting from Monsignor Hnilica1
Published on Anchor December 2021. Read by Gabriel Garcia Valdivieso.
Music from the Christmas Moments album. Used by permission.
1 https://www.messengersaintanthony.com/content/mother-teresas-christmas
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