We have just been through a great time.  Shopping, reunions, bonding with friends and family members.  I really had a great time, as well as a lot of time to think things through.

Somehow, most of us have a rather materialistic view of Christmas and New Year.  Christmas  is perceived as a time where we buy new clothes, gifts, pimp our houses to impress our guests, and a lot of other things that money can buya. We buy branded clothes from LaCoste, Calvin Klein, Dolce & Gabanna, Ralph Lauren, Mango, and a lot more.   All these grandiose things, does that make us better people? Do those things bring us closer to God?  Will these treasures of ours buy us a place in heaven?  Of course, they make us look better in the eyes of man, but does it also make us look better in the eyes of God?  Unless we love our brothers and share it to the unfortunate, I guess the answer is NO.

Christmas has become too commercialized.  Yet, it was never meant to be that way.  I even remembered someone saying happy birthday Saint Nicholas.  I was really disappointed.  What a misconception. Come to think of it, what are we celebrating?  Isn’t it the birth of our Lord?  Isn’t it that Jesus was born in a manger? What does that tell us?  As one of the brothers in my brother’s seminary put it, when it is our birthday, we receive gifts.  Christmas is Christ’s birthday, why do you expect a gift? It’s not your birthday.   It is Christ’s birthday, so you are the one who is supposed to give Him a gift.  And since He was born in a manger, I think He is trying to show us that Christmas has nothing to do with material things.  It is about sacrifice, it is about Love.  So, now we should ask ourselves, what gift can I give the One who gave me everything?

Categories : My Thoughts, My Journey