“Christmas brings hope, courage, and responsibility”
Christmas is often wrapped in joy and festivity, but at its core, it entails a more demanding gift.
It brings hope, courage, and responsibility.
The story of the Holy Family isn’t a sentimental tableau; it is one of exclusion, insecurity, and poverty.
Mary, Joseph, and the child Jesus knew vulnerability and displacement. From the very beginning, Christmas calls us to stand with those on the margins.
Pope Leo XIV captures this truth sharply in his document DilexiTe, reminding us that the Church is most authentically herself when she walks with those who suffer.
To love the poor is to love Christ Himself; this is central to Christian identity.
Solidarity cannot stop at generosity. Charity is vital, yet Pope Leo insists the Church must undergo a “structural conversion.” This means confronting the structures of sin that perpetuate poverty, injustice, and corruption.
Corruption, in particular, drains resources meant for the common good, fractures communities, and erodes trust in institutions. In places like the Philippines, where poverty and corruption reinforce each other, this call carries special urgency.
When corruption thrives, the poor pay the price. The Church cannot afford ambiguity; silence in the face of injustice risks complicity.
Christmas reframes our struggle against corruption with a horizon of hope. This hope is not naive optimism; it is disciplined faith that believes transformation is possible.
The manger stands as a quiet yet radical rejection of arrogance, greed, and domination, calling us to accountability and justice.
The Gospel makes this unmistakable.
The Holy Family endured displacement; God chose to enter human history from the margins.
The shepherds, the poorest and most invisible, were the first to hear the Good News.
The marginalized are not only those we are called to serve; they are bearers of the Gospel itself.
On a personal note, I was deeply grateful for the chance to join the annual Nativity reenactment hosted by artist Julie Lluch and her circle of friends at what they call the Church Cafe.
Melba Maggay, writer and spiritual thinker, opened the gathering with a powerful reflection on Christmas, drawing from the Gospel of Matthew. She spoke of the Magi’s encounter with Herod, the massacre of the innocents, and the Holy Family’s flight to Egypt.
Jesus was born in a time of terror and political violence. Christmas is light shining in darkness, hope refusing to yield to fear.
Indeed, the Christmas story is a lesson in courage. Christ is born not in power but in vulnerability.
Salvation begins in a manger, not in a palace.
The star of Bethlehem becomes a sign of hope leading us toward lives shaped by integrity and solidarity.
The shepherds and the Magi found joy amid danger and uncertainty, reminding us that injustice and corruption do not have the final word.
The Incarnation affirms that even in darkness,
God is present and at work.
Melba’s words stirred memories of my own Christmas journey.
I have always loved this season. Growing up in Cagayan de Oro in the 1960s and 1970s, Christmas meant caroling, midnight Mass, and joyful family gatherings for Noche Buena with our cousins the Velezes and family friends the Tiros.
But as an activist in the late 1970s and 1980s, I felt a deep tension. Celebrating while the country suffered under repression and injustice felt discordant.
For the past 30 years, especially since the 1990s, my Novembers and Decembers have often been consumed by climate justice work and international negotiations.
And yet, Christmas has remained a time of rest. By the time of Simbang Gabi around Dec. 15,
I consciously step back from most work and allow myself to enter fully into the season. Call it bourgeois if you like, but it is a choice I make every year.
There were times I felt guilty for retreating from urgent struggles. I learned to live with contradictions.
But in recent years, especially this past week on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and again in Julie’s home, I realized something important: there is no contradiction anymore.
Celebrating Christmas fully makes us humble, simple, and grateful, the catechesis we learn in the Neo Cathechumenal Way.
It purifies the heart and gives us the eyes of a child like that of my seven year old friend Xoce – eyes that see the world with wonder, trust, and courage. Christmas is not an escape from struggle; it is preparation for it. With purity of heart and the eyes of a child, we are ready to do whatever the Lord asks of us next.
