KEEP ON LOVING

According to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), Christmas is “the season to celebrate the Lord's birth, his manifestation to the world, and His baptism. The season begins Christmas eve and ends on the Baptism of the Lord, including the Epiphany of the Lord as well.” Thus, this Sunday, 9th January 2011, Feast of the Baptism of our Lord, is the official end of the Christmas season and the First Sunday of Ordinary Time, the beginning of the Ordinary Time in our church liturgical calendar. In other countries, however, following Orthodox Christian tradition that uses the Julian calendar, Christmas Eve is celebrated on January 18, and Christmas Day on January 19 (in our Gregorian calendar). And thus, there the whole Christmas season can extend up to the first Sunday of February. In the Philippines, the Christmas feeling starts in September up and until February 2!

The Christmas experience here at St. Catherine’s has been most edifying for me. Maybe because I was more emphatically conscious of what was happening this time than before. Families came to the rectory with food for the poor, so poor families could have a grand feast for Christmas. A couple looked for a Christmas tree for a family of 5 children: they said it is not acceptable that children should have no Christmas Tree in their home at Christmas. Another cried in tears upon knowing that a family would have no lights for Christmas, and they could not do anything about it. A widower in his early 80s took his time to decorate his home with Christmas décor, baked cakes and prepared smoked pork for his friends and family, and solicited money from his grandchildren and children, telling them they had just given food and joy to the poor this Christmas!

We know that we have always had love in our hearts throughout the year. The Church continues to accompany us in our life of loving by these seasonal and sacramental reminders of God’s love for us, and our participation in the Life and Love of God. The reminders also include God’s way of loving, and His call for us to love the way He loves us: Forgiving and Reconciling, Giving and Sharing Gifts and Blessings, Mutual Self-Giving and Suffering for the sake of the Beloved, for the sake of Life, Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation!

In real life then, Christmas is not just seasonal and sacramental. It is everyday, and concrete. God continues to love us with an enduring, faithful and forgiving love. He calls us to love and serve each other every moment throughout the year! This is so because by our participation in the Baptism of Jesus, we become children of God, recipients of the “life of the Spirit who breathes charity into (us) and who forms the Church” (CCC 1997). So, keep on loving! – Fr. Ben Alforque, MSC