Fourth Sunday of Advent - Year C

Fourth Sunday of Advent - Year C

Christmas is almost at the gate.

In our homes virtually everything is ready. We have prepared what is needed for celebrating this feast in a lovely and beautiful way.

We are also most probably ready.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve.  We will be celebrating the most beautiful and appealing feast of the new life. God will become a member of our human family. This historical fact which took place in Bethlehem two thousand years ago, is even now, two millennia later, a special and extraordinary sign. A sign of God's love and unalterable decision to invite everybody to join Him in heaven.

Since our childhood days, we remember only the good and warm things which happened in our lives.

Beautiful Christmas trees, colorful and bright decorations, snow, crèche, visiting members of our family, relatives, specially prepared food, presents and carols … all this is somehow connected with Christmas.

But, we know that all these elements are secondary and nonessential, as long as we do believe that God coming to us in this Divine Baby is the most import_ant reason for the season. And let us be frank, it is difficult.

We aren't becoming sentimental and emotional in celebrating Christmas, but rather cold and dry in keeping Christ in Christmas.

It is difficult because we, the citizens of the twenty first century, have to prepare a place in our daily life for somebody whom essentially we don’t know. We are not able to touch him, to talk with him, to see him. Moreover, God is choosing us to be the witnesses to His Son. He would like to touch others, and be heard by others through us, through the intermediary of our lives. It is because He chose us as His disciples, as His witnesses. Is it possible?

Obviously, if we pass this time of Christmas at the table or in front of the TV screen it will be impossible to be the witnesses to the newborn Christ. We will be celebrating a jolly feast, but we will not get anything deeper from Christmas.

Let us rather see the celebration of the nativity of Christ as a mystery of the new life, a birth of a new member of our family, as a birthday of our Best Friend. Let us find a little bit more time for our families, for God, for prayer, for adoration, just for being human. Let us learn how to see Him in our daily life, how to see His presence in those who are in need, in the normal, even the smallest events of our daily life.

We can give to ourselves the best present, the best gift. We can receive Christ into our life, into our families, into our homes and schools, and into our hearts.

And this is the Birth of God, the Birth of Christ in me.