Bing Crosby used to say that “unless we make our Christmas an occasion to share our blessings, all the snow in Alaska won’t make it white.” Our lives have become exhaustively secularized, choked by extreme consumption levels, maneuvered by the latest technological gadgets which seem to synchronize every moment of our existence. Yet, does this reflect a joyful life? Is our body and mind adorned with beauty and knowledge but the soul spiritually starved?

Life on the fast lane has conditioned us to believe that stopping for a few moments for some serious soul-searching is simply unaffordable. Rather, we would prefer to breathlessly rush from one thing to another, a race against time where we run the risk of transforming ourselves into compulsive doers at the cost of losing our true sense of being. 

It is time to take a few deep breaths, and let them go slowly till we reach the stage of tranquillizing our turbulent spirit. It is time to walk the walk of the three wise men to the Bethlehem of our hearts and rediscover the beauty that lies within, a soul in search of the beyond, a thirst to find a sense of meaning to all that befalls our worldly journey.

“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds rest in you” confesses St Augustine who was accustomed to worldly pleasures before his conversion. And St Paul re-asserts “I consider everything worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Yes, for his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him.” (Phil 3: 8) 

In poverty, yet surrounded by a heavenly bliss of joyful peace a child is born in Bethlehem. “ For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) 

This is what Christmas is all about. It is a call to dwell deeper into this vast mystery of the Divine. Christmas is a call to re-engage with God’s love for mankind through the birth of our blessed Lord who from the cradle to the cross freely offered his life as a living sacrifice for our sins, to re-unite us with eternal love, eternal love once lost through spiritual sloth but now rekindled, a rainbow amidst a grey sky. It is precisely in this cradle of our heart that we have to choose between light and darkness, between the fountains of living water that satisfies our thirst or the endless rush of worldly cares. 

It is with this interior disposition that we can really rejoice with expectant faith during this blessed time of the year. This interior disposition, once nurtured and sustained can only give birth to an exterior manifestation of ourselves towards all around us. It is then that sharing our blessings especially with the poor or deprived is no longer necessitated out of some moral obligation but flows freely from our generous heart, a heart that mirrors the joyful message of hope during this special time of year.

The wise men came from ‘the East,” the land of the rising sun, the symbol of hope. Any pilgrimage we begin in seeking God, in any part of our lives, is undertaken for this motive. Hope is one of the three most necessary things in the world, one of the three theological virtues. Hope is our energy, our trigger, our motive power. The Christmas story happens not only once, in history, but also many times in each individual’s soul. Christ comes to the world – but He also comes to each of us. Advent happens over and over again.

Like the three wise men, our pilgrimage is a long and dangerous one. But nothing is more dangerous than missing the Christ in Christmas.

THIS ARTICLE WAS PUBLISHED IN THE TIMES ON 19/12/2011- AUTHOR GORDON P VASSALLO