J.M.J.
To me, Christmas last year feels as if it happened just ‘yesterday.’ I’m not sure if you share the same feeling that 2020 passed by in the blink of an eye. The whole world seemed to have rushed from start to the end of the year somewhat emptily because month after month, our lives have been so much about the COVID-19 pandemic, social distancing, lockdowns, virtual meetings, and ‘nothing’ else. Personally, I wasn’t able to do the usual things that always occupied my time, including my religious life as Catholic, such as receiving the Sacrament of Confession once or twice a month, going to Church for Mass more than once a week, and traveling for pilgrimages to places like the National Shrine of Our Mother of Perpetual Help, colloquially known as Baclaran Church.
Christmas in the so-called “New Normal”
Life has indeed changed across the globe in a heartbeat. And this year’s Christmas celebration is no exception. It is offbeat from all the other ones that most of us had ever since. Here in the Philippines, what defines the “Filipino Christmas spirit” were mostly missing — Where were all those holiday shoppers that packed malls til midnight during the Christmas rush? Where were the Christmas parties at work and school, or the big family reunions? Where were the random “Nangangaroling” that sang Christmas carols in front of houses? And most importantly, where were the Mass-goers that flocked to parishes, filling the pews and the aisles, and standing even outside the Church, for “Simbang Gabi” or the 9-day Christmas Novena Masses? Short answer: Nowhere. Current pandemic protocols have prohibited such activities and large gatherings. Mayors of Metro Manila suburbs have agreed to ban firecrackers for the New Year’s Eve as part of health and safety measures during the pandemic. (By the way, I grew up feeling anxious each New Year’s Eve because of the firecracker ‘explosions’ that sounded like there was a war going on right outside.) And even if your circumstances differ from mine, wherever you are right now, I’m sure that you could relate with me one way or another.
Greetings to our Readers
Before I continue with my reflection, let me greet you, dear Reader, wherever you are in the world, a very Merry Christmas! We have made it to this Season; it’s the year-end. No matter what others say that the pandemic has taken the lives of only a small percentage of people who got afflicted with COVID-19, we need to acknowledge that many lives, more than 1.7 Million lives so far, were lost this year just because of a virus—a microscopic particle. Let us be grateful to God for the grace of a precious life that He has given me and you as a gift. We must keep in mind though that it is not to be used to live a life of earthly pleasure, but to fulfill a mission — to follow Jesus Christ in this life as the worthy children of God ought to do. May this Season of Hope, Faith, Joy, Peace, and Love take us closer to attaining whatever God is directing us to do.
My Reflection
This Christmas Season, we are asked to stay inside our houses with only the closest family members. Some people even find themselves home alone, literally. But these very unusual moments of spending Christmastime amidst social distancing and lockdown could actually turn out to be the most fitting season to pause, reflect, and listen to God Who is speaking to us.
1. Through the Infant in the manger, everything came to be
I derive portions of my reflection from the Gospel that is read on Christmas Day of every year from the Book of Saint John. For perspective, the Gospel for the Vigil, Midnight, and Dawn Masses provided us a historical background and vivid narrative of the Nativity of the Infant Jesus — from generations of His human ascendants among the people of Israel, to His human parents, the Virgin Mary and His foster father Joseph, to His Birth in Bethlehem, and to the shepherds to whom the Good News was proclaimed. The Gospel for the Daytime Mass, in contrast, presented to us the mystery of His Incarnation:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race…”
— John 1:1-4
The verses above tell us an important truth — that before anything and everything ever came into existence, before God Incarnated as Man on earth — Jesus Who is God, the Word, has always existed. Sadly, in this day and age wherein the world is plagued by secularism, permissiveness, relativism, perversion, skepticism, and atheism, many people deny God, disbelieving that He exists at all. To them, God is just a hypothesis that science has yet to prove, or simply a byproduct of imagination. Even some Catholics are swayed away from the Faith by worldly temptations. But this Season is an opportune time for us, the faithful, to realize that the Infant Jesus is the heart that gives life to the entire Creation. He is ever present in all that there is. The pandemic has been a powerful reminder that everything in this world exists by the mercy and love of God; only by the means of His Word. Without God, nothing comes to be. And every person must never forget what Jesus Himself said,
“Without me, you can do nothing.”
— John 15:5
My ‘Social Life’ during this Pandemic
Chances are, if you have been social distancing through most of this year, or have been under some form of quarantine or lockdown for a long period, you have involved yourself in some new activity or revived an old hobby.
This reminds me of the online game in the genre of “MMORPG” or Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game that I have joined this year as influenced by a friend. It is called Final Fantasy XIV. I have always considered myself a gamer. Though it’s due to the “enhanced community quarantine” or ECQ, as it is referred to here in the country, that I had more ‘free’ time. I decided to give FFXIV a go after Easter Sunday. Since the German Server where I chose to be into already has thousands of players, I have encountered and gotten to know people who are mostly from Germany and a few other countries in Europe, from all walks of life — the less educated and the more educated, the regular and the talented, the ordinary and the accomplished, the most normal and the most insane so to speak, the sad and the happy, the sick and the healthy, the poor and the rich. As such, during lockdown and despite social distancing, I had a super busy ‘social life.’
Its gameplay is designed as journeying in a vast, open ‘world.’ I often joke to my friends in there “We’ve got our own civilization in here.” While yes, it is just a game, I noticed that the friendships and all the emotions, feelings and dramas that go along with it, as we ‘see’ each other ingame almost every day, and continue our talks in other social platforms, were as real as real life could be to me and the other players.
I say that this gaming experience has changed me; it has enriched my perspective on life and people in general. I have discovered things about myself that I never knew existed in me before. I have learned to deal with people who are completely different from me—in age, race, color, status, beliefs and of course, religion… In fact, I have learned to love them.
Some personal observations
Perhaps, to a regular gamer, the stuffs that people do in the game are all random. To me though, as someone who strives to live the Catholic Faith zealously, I notice that there has always been one common thing that influences the personality and affects the behavior of my fellow gamers—their belief in God (and their religious affiliation)—or actually, the lack or absence thereof.
In this piece, I’m not talking about those gamers who belong to other religions, and have other religious beliefs. Instead, I’m focusing on those players who considered themselves agnostics or atheists. Although I experienced having agnostic and atheist friends in my teens, it is only now as a young adult, in this digital age of social media, that I have been able to talk again with such people about their choice of being agnostic or atheist. It’s interesting how they always pointed out my religion as soon as they had found it out, and ‘questioned’ me on being Catholic.
Are Catholics being judgmental?
I am aware that many unbelievers label or accuse us Catholics as being ‘judgmental.’ They obviously get it wrong, for we have always been taught as Catholics to not judge our neighbors. As a personal example, in the game, I met, and have gotten to know someone who is non-Christian; a member of another major world religion. Yet, this person is among the smartest, most awesome and loveliest I have ever known. It is definitely not for me to say that at the end of the world, they are not going to Heaven because of who and what they are. With how amazing this person is, I will actually be very sad if it happens that I don’t meet them in Heaven someday, according to God’s Will. Because I pray that we do. Though in the first place, I cannot say with certainty that I’m going to Heaven myself. For everything is known only to the Almighty God, and a truly devoted Catholic understands it well. We could only pray for our own salvation and the salvation of the ones we care about, and love.
Disbelief in the Divine
What I have realized from all my conversations with agnostic and atheist gamers in the past months up to these recent days is that no pandemic nor virus, no extraordinary circumstance (like countries under lockdowns), and no tragedy (infection that lead to deaths all over the world) can make them see God in their lives. That probably sounds really unfortunate of them, but they just cannot perceive the Divine Hand in all these. I’m not saying that they do not have any kindness in them. All of them have their own positive qualities. But I have really understood from these encounters that the presence or the absence of belief in God does shape a person.
Their disbelief in God, and in particular, in Jesus Christ, pains me. It reminds me that these people have disregarded almost a year-long chance to stay at home, work from home, examine themselves, reflect on their lives, and just think about all that have been going on in the world—and begin to see Christ this Season, for the Infant Jesus in the manger is:
“The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.”
— John 1:9
Spiritual Blindness and Deafness
Even though the Gospel is already proclaimed to all corners of the world through the internet, not all have seen it with their eyes and heard it with their ears. Rejecting the Word—the Messiah—did not only happen in the past during the time of Jesus Christ. Up to now, many people, including those I met ingame, and the rest of the secular world reject the Light, just as John the Evangelist wrote:
“He was in the world, and the world came to be through him, but the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, but his own people did not accept him.”
— John 1:10-11
2. The center of the Story is the Infant Jesus
Speaking of those who do not believe and accept Jesus Christ, it is as if they have made themselves the focal point of their life story, and displaced the central role of Jesus in everything. I think that it is the sin of pride that makes people say there is just not enough proof to confirm God’s existence despite the revelations made through the Bible, the Sacred Tradition, the lives of the Martyrs and Saints, the works of the Doctors of the Church, the contributions of the laity, and so on.
As faithful Catholics, let us remember this Season to keep the Infant Jesus in a manger at the center of the Nativity Story, and to always place Him at the core of every aspect of our lives.
Jesus said to him, “I am the way and the truth and the life.”
— John 14:6
3. The Infant Jesus is the Word, Our Lord and Savior
It is truly such a mystery how God has always had, right from the very beginning of Creation, a Divine Plan of salvation for mankind through the Passion, Death and Resurrection of His Son. Our human intellect will never be able to completely comprehend it. A proof of such is that agnostics and atheists struggle to grasp the Divine Truth. However, God does not ask us to fully comprehend His Wisdom, but to accept the Word. He invites us to accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior because those who do so become His children—we become adopted sons and daughters of God:
“But to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born not by natural generation nor by human choice nor by a man’s decision but of God.”
— John 1:12-13
4. Faith makes us embrace the Word
My agnostic and atheist friends ingame say that logical reasoning tells them that Jesus Christ as God is absurd. As I have mentioned, the realm of the Incarnation of the Word, that God became Man, an Infant in a manger, is so profound that the beautifully philosophical and theological narratives in the Gospel of John are but a glimpse of it, especially for ordinary people like us. That it is a mystery should not hinder us from receiving the Word. And what makes us embrace the Word is Faith.
Interestingly, I get a sense that despite being agnostics or atheists, most of them are still seeking to know the truth. However, their logical reasoning, without faith, is not taking them to any answer. Mere reasoning is failing them from conceiving the truth. What believers and unbelievers alike need is a “combination” of Faith and Reason that leads us to know the Truth. I recall that the writing of Saint Pope John Paul II entitled “Fides et Ratio,” thoroughly discusses this subject matter. He says,
“Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart the desire to know the truth — in a word, to know himself — so that by knowing and loving God, men and women can come to the fullness of the truth about themselves.”
The explanation above confirms what I have been feeling that deep inside them, my friends ingame who do not believe both in God and Catholicism still seek to know the Truth because God has made it inherent in our human nature to do so, regardless of our personal beliefs.
5. Our God-given Mission: Be a “Testimony” to the Word
From the same Gospel of John (1:7), we read that God sent John the Baptist, a Saint I love so much, to bear witness and “testify to the light” who is Jesus “so that all might believe through him.”
Saint John the Baptist gave mankind a most worthy example—he came, embraced the Word of God, fulfilled his God-given mission, and testified to Jesus:
“The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.
He is the one of whom I said, ‘A man is coming after me who ranks ahead of me because he existed before me.’
John testified further, saying, “I saw the Spirit come down like a dove from the sky and remain upon him.
Now I have seen and testified that he is the Son of God.”— John 1:29-30, 32, 34
Like I’ve mentioned at the start of this article, all of us who have gone through this unprecedented year, and are still alive right now have been blessed with the gift of life, and equally important, have been given a mission. That is, to be a “testimony” to the Word Who is Jesus Christ.
Jesus is the Light—the origin and the center of the entire Salvation History—we are not the light. John the Baptist was not the light, yet he came so that all might believe. As men and women who were created in the image and likeness of God, we are capable of reflecting and radiating the light of God to the rest of the world through our way of living—our attitude, behavior and personal qualities. The people around us must feel in us the holiness and virtues that make us Catholic. Our friends and those who personally know us should be able to say, “It is rare to find someone who is as lovely as this Catholic woman/man.”
6. These extraordinary times have taken us to the First Nativity
Social distancing and ongoing lockdowns have consequently made the holiday celebrations bereft of the many material things and events that we have gotten used to all these years. But what we may realize is that Yule Season this year has given us a glimpse of the very First Christmas—one ‘Silent Night’ with nothing and no one but the humble manger surrounded by Joseph and Mary, who laid in it the Infant Jesus. Nothing more than the simplicity, beauty and depth of love of the Holy Family could be seen and felt in that solemn night. What it also means is that there has never been a greater time than now to offer up our hearts and homes as a solemn Manger for the Messiah by continually practicing the Catholic Faith throughout this pandemic.
But just as there was no room for the Holy Family in the inn back at Bethlehem, modern-day unbelievers have kept their doors closed to God. Let us remember them in our prayers because as I have said, not even the pandemic could open the hearts of the agnostics and atheists that I encountered ingame. If we are to take that as any indication, then we know that many more souls all around the planet are still pervaded by darkness and sin.
7. The Holy Infant Jesus continues to live in us
The pandemic has made us feel very fragile, very vulnerable, very human—similar to the state and form of a newborn baby, which God chose for Himself, out of His immense love for us, in His wish to be closer to us. Whether we belong to those who agree or disagree to what the authorities are obliging us to do, and even though we must self-isolate in our houses, practice social distancing, wear both face masks and face shields everywhere we go, or remain under lockdown, we Catholics should not feel powerless or fearful — for “the Word,” the Infant Jesus Who “became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (John 1:14) continues to live in us, as the Gospel of John reminded us this Christmas. The love of God is always with us because we accepted the Word and His Commandment. Henceforth, we became the children of God—and that makes everything that is happening in the world more bearable.
* * *
God calls upon us to embrace His Word. The Nativity is where we will find the ultimate model for us to imitate in answering the call to embrace the Word this Christmas Season and in all the days to come. Let us direct our gaze to the Blessed Virgin—as she cradled in her arms the Infant Jesus born in the peacefulness of the Christmas night—as she wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger (Luke 2:7). Mary embraced the Word with all her love. She embraced the Messiah with her “Fiat,” in total fidelity, and fully accepted His grace. Mary’s “Fiat” paved the way for the Redemption of man, and it echoes throughout the history of mankind for all eternity.
If we embrace the Infant like Our Lady did, we will be living all our days and nights in a manger—a ‘manger’ that is inside our very own hearts—where we will be under lockdown, distancing from all the evils and sins of the world, and with confidence as redeemed children of God that when Our Lord Jesus Christ returns at the end of the world—and this time, not as a Child, but as a mighty Warrior, a rightful Judge to reward and punish, and a glorious Savior—we, you and I, will live eternally in Heaven… in God’s loving embrace.
Saint John the Baptist, the voice crying in the wilderness, pray for us!
Saint Joseph, pray for us!
Mama Mary, pray for us!
Amen.
She graduated cum laude from the University of Santo Tomas, the country's Pontifical and Catholic university, with an AB in Legal Management and minor units in Theology.
As an unmarried woman, prayer holds a central place in her daily life, with a focus on the Rosary and the Divine Office. Embodying her faith, she emphasizes the growth of her inner spiritual life, guided by the wisdom of Carmelite spirituality.
God manifested to her in a unique and radical manner, which made her know Who He truly is and led her to total surrender of her life to Him.
She has studied the Bible with her family, developing a particular fondness for the Old Testament.
Her adorable and intelligent toy poodle is a delightful companion in her daily life, bringing warmth and joy to her home.
Her hobbies include reading about everything, learning Japanese and German, listening to music and playing the flute.
In her leisure time, she enjoys gaming on PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch OLED, Nintendo 3DS, iOS and OS, and collecting things related to PlayStation and Nintendo.
Email: [email protected]
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