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Sunday 21 June 2020

CHRISTMAS WITH A DIFFERENCE

             It is indeed a CHRISTMAS - TALE of 2018. While India was celebrating its Independence - anniversary on 15 August, a newly - born baby was found in a Chennai - gutter, wailing heavily. His umbilical cord was still found wound around his tiny neck. That morning saw many a people walking over the drain. But, it was a poor and compassionate passer-by, Geetha by name, who came forward to his rescue. Immediately setting aside all other tasks, she rushed him to the Government‘s Children Hospital.   

         The baby was utterly underweight, at just 1.9kg. He had a number of health complications. Tests showed that he had a severe bacterial infection in the blood. Accordingly, he was moved to intensive care unit for further close-care. For over 2 weeks, the baby was put on high - spectrum antibiotics and monitored round the clock by a team of doctors and nurses. Breast-milk from the hospital’s milk bank was processed, pasteurised and fed through a tiny cup.
         At discharge, he weighed 2.17kg. The hospital - director observed: “If he continues on exclusive breast-milk, he’d be healthy. Hence, we are making arrangements to send the required quantity every day wherever he’s going to be“. As the State Social Welfare Minister was handing over the baby to the Child Welfare for adoption-procedure, one of the nurses wished: “Hope he finds a good family to take care of him, just like we did”. The whole ward cheered. The loudest were the nurses who kept vigil over this unknown baby as he fought against all odds to survive. By the way, Geetha who rescued the baby had named him, “SUDANTHIRAM”. That means, “INDEPENDENCE".
    
         Does not this tale vividly bring to our memory another male baby, born 2000 years ago at Bethlehem..? This one’s birth has come to be commemorated, from the year 336, as a great festival of CHRISTMAS with a big lists of ‘Cs’: CAROLS, CRIBS, CAKES, CHOCOLATES, CLOTHES,   COLOURS, CELEBRATIONS and so on. If so, this year, shall we allow ourselves to be challenged by the above Chennai-tale, with 3 - DIFFERENT Cs, as follows..? 

             CONNECTIVITY:   
          Christmas can be pondered over as a solemn celebration of Connectivity. The God of compassion refused to let down the humanity - in - sin. He came forward to get himself re - connected to it through his beloved son Jesus. The latter, in turn, had kindly donated even up to his last drop of blood. By that, he had sealed the divine - human connectivity with his very precious blood. Connectivity had thus reached a peak- moment in the whole human evolution. All for an integral independence of the total human family, from all its damaging and depressing features.  In the words of Fulton Sheen, “Jesus was BORN TO DIE so that we would be BORN TO LIVE".

          Is it not edifying to learn, an unknown Geetha had got herself so easily connected with that gutter-boy? Doctors and nurses did the same, enthusiastically. So too, mothers who donated their breast- milk, specifically for this stranger. In the process, the entire hospital system gets humanised and also, enriched and evangelised.

           A latest survey reveals that an Indian, at an average, spends close to 3- hours a day on social media including cell phones. Connectivity is dismissed even with those who sit across, leave alone with those who are just across our street. This happens even in a family-dinner table. Awareness that has been slowly brewing is turning in to a national consensus: The benefits of screens as a learning tool are overblown and the risk for addiction emerges high. What is the great deal of getting connected with the far-friends while unconnected with the near-ones?

         In that given scenario, this Christmas invites and much more, urges us to get in touch with the latter in a conscious way, especially with those whom we’ve lost in this passing year of 2018. They can be our own grannies, co-workers, retired teachers, forgotten benefactors, neighbours and why, even wrong- doers (Mt.5:44-46). What do you say?

              CORDIALITY:
         Denied a place in any inn around, that newly born was laid in a manger. He’d be known as ‘Emmanuel‘(Mt.1:23). That means, God - with - us. This New Testamental Cordiality, in a way, goes beyond the Old Testamental one that presented the divine only as a God - for- us. Moreover, prime cordiality is granted to those who are in periphery. Why..? Jesus himself would eventually say that the least of brothers and sisters are of his family (Mt.25: 40).

         Cordiality is the first causality in our current fast -changing world with all its globalisation and privatisation, liberalisation and digitalisation. A throw away-culture is universally present and tangibly evident. Throwing away that started with used cups and spoons, has reached now with people being misused and abused, dismissed and dumped. 

          In other words, human cordiality is now hugely commercialised. Take for example, even the current marital projects and other sacramental programs. A consumerist mind-set has got resulted. Life - moments and love - encounters are much measured and maintained by the idol of money (Mt.6:24). Corruption and corrosion have, in the process, come to occupy the central stage.

          This Christmas demands of us to say an emphatic ”No-No” to the above negativities in our daily lives, as Jesus himself had suggested in a related context (Mt.5:37). All this is for acquiring a definitive cordiality with and a dedicative solidarity to the marginalised. Why..? The focal figure of this festival is One who had emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human weakness (Phil.2:7). If so, we are also called  NOT to cling on to our positions and privileges as something to be exploited but, with a genuine cordiality, to place ourselves at the service of those who are pushed to the periphery. What do you say?

                  CREATIVITY:   
             For the babe of Chennai, creativity occurred in being adopted by a welcoming couple for a new future. For the Babe of Bethlehem, it is a new epoch marked by peace, not to him but to all the people of good will (Lk.2:14). The horizon of God’s Mission gets creatively broadened and inclusively expanded. Nobody is left out. Everyone is invited. Also, everything is invited. That means, enveloping also the totality of Cosmos. 
   
               Way back in 1224 on the Christmas’ day, when Francis of Assisi produced the first Crib, it was in a natural scenario. By that demo, Francis was eager to highlight that God’s connectivity and cordiality were not only with humanity but also with Nature and the total CREATION. Accordingly, not only to create a New Humanity but also a “NEW EARTH AND A NEW HAVEN“(Rev.21:1-7).

             Then, how come, we destroy nature, cut trees and go for plastic materials even while decorating a crib in our parishes or at our homes? What an irony..!  The last 25 years alone, an area of terrestrial wilderness larger than India - a staggering 3.3 million sq.km - was lost to human settlement, farming, mining and other pressures and thus, impoverishing our Mother Earth. 

           We then should feel obliged to double up our concern for Creation around us by some extra-care for its protection and promotion. This is indeed an ecological spirituality, recognising the presence of the incarnated divine in all the cosmic beings.   If so, this Christmas could be a ‘GREEN ONE’, sensitising and stirring us toward some creative services so that we restore some beauty to God’s Creation, to begin with, in our living localities. What do you say?      
          
                      CONNECTIVITY + CORDIALITY + CREATIVITY would certainly transform this CHRISMAS of 2018 into something more PROACTIVE and PRODUCTIVE..!  And also, transform us into more ELIGIBLE and CREDIBLE sisters and brothers of Jesus, all through the upcoming 2019..! 
                                
- Jerry Rosario, SJ jerrysj1@gmail.com  

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