NOT “MERELY”…
Readings for the Mass at Night
Isaiah 9:1-6; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-14
Readings for the Mass During the Day
Isaiah 52:7-10; Hebrews 1:1-6; John 1:1-18
Virginia Owens in her book, “And the Trees Clap their Hands”, suggests that along life’s way, everything becomes “merely”. There are merely stars and sky, merely sunrises and sunsets, merely rain and dew… we lose their connection with God’s creation.
Owens asserts that this diminishment to “merely” leads to crime! The human thought-process: It costs “merely” a few bucks; I’ll take it. It’s “merely” the earth; I’ll exploit it. He/she is “merely” an employee; I’ll fire him/her. This is “merely” a human life; I’ll destroy it. This diminishment to “merely” leads to violence and war; the loss of “merely” a few thousand lives makes little difference.
The Christmas story, nay, reality is a powerful affirmation that there is no “merely”!
Jesus is not merely an infant in a manger; he is the Son of God, the Word who became flesh and pitched his tent among us.
Mary is not merely a maiden with child; she is the mother of the Saviour. And Joseph is not merely a carpenter; he is the earthly father of Jesus.
They are not merely shepherds; they are the privileged recipients of the Good News and the first ones to pay homage to the Christ-child.
It is not merely a manger; it is the cradle of the “Prince of Peace”. It is not merely a stable; it is a marvellous symbol of communion among all God’s people—beyond barriers—and among his creation. Bethlehem is not merely an obscure town in Judah; it is birthplace of the new-born King of the Jews. This is not merely the world; it is a world so loved by God that he gave his only Son.
Everyone and everything are part of God’s grand design for the world and its salvation.
Yet it was not so at the first Christmas! In the Gospel, we have the one of the saddest lines in the Bible: “He came to his own and his own recognized him not.” Why? He was merely a carpenter. He was merely from Nazareth.
We need to rediscover the inherent worth of every human being as a child of God, and the value of every aspect of reality as a part of God’s creation. A man/woman/child is not an object whom I can exploit for my selfish gain and lustful pleasure. The earth, with all its resources, is not something which I ravage and destroy without concern for others and without care about the future.
From this Christmas, will I stop looking at people and things as “merely” and start looking at them as connected with God and his wonderful plan? Will I give every person his/her rightful worth and everything its rightful value?
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