By Sonnie Ekwowusi in AllAfrica.com
22 December 2009
It's another Christmas (or Christ's Mass) ! You can hear the angels, the Magi, the Shepherds, men and women of our time inhabiting the four corners of the earth singing: "jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle all the way " in celebration of Christmas. From Washington D.C, London , Paris, Montreal , Madrid , Rome down to Fashola's Lagos houses, streets, offices and shops are decorated with special festoons and rosettes at the dawn of Christmas. Christmas, unarguably, is the most celebrated Feast in Christendom.
Christmas is simply the dies natalis, the birth day of Jesus Christ, the redeemer and Saviour of the world. Before the first Christmas, the hope was widespread in Jewish times that a Messiah King would come. Kings after kings, prophets after prophets, rulers after rulers later came, wielded power and authority.
Some even conquered and acted like messiahs. But none could satisfy that deep human longing for true liberation and redemption. But when the appointed time came what poet William Butler Yeats dubbed the "uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor" took place at a relatively obscure town of Bethlehem in contrast to human wisdom and human expectation: Jesus Christ took flesh in the womb of Virgin Mary and came to be born among us.
This is the mystery we shall be celebrating on Friday: God condescending Himself to become man and to live among us. As St. Josemaria Escriva aptly puts it: "when the fullness of time came, no philosophical genius, no Plato or Socrates appears to fulfill the mission of redemption. Nor does a powerful conqueror, another Alexander, take over the earth. Instead a child is born in Bethlehem ".
This Christmas, I guess, is a special Christmas. It is the last Christmas of the decade. More importantly it is the Christmas in the year of the world financial crisis. Confronted with the so many financial scandals and unethical practices in business, many in the world today are still looking for a perfect bail out.
And I think this Christmas offers a good opportunity to reflect deeply on this. What is the way out? The London Economist, Wall Street and world financial experts keep harping on the economic theories capable of producing the miracle. President Obama is ever on his feet proffering solutions and solutions. If you listen to the BBC, CNN or the big world analysts, it is big talks all revolving around mechanistic and technological development.
The average European may not worry about the breakdown of traditional families and high rate of divorce and juvenile suicide tearing Europe apart, but he is worried about the climatic change. Pick up the bestsellers and all what you will be reading is the same anthropological and mechanistic reductionism. But in his latest Encyclical Letter: Charity in Truth, Pope Benedict XVI calls for a deeper reflection on the true meaning of human development.
Integral human development, according to the Pope, must "include not just material growth, but spiritual growth as well, since the human person is a unity of body and soul the human being develops when he grows in the spirit, when his soul comes to know itself and the truths that God has implanted deep within ". In other words, the Pope is simply saying that a mechanistic and materialistic solution alone cannot be the true solution. If, for example, the world bankers persevere in the unethical practice of "making up the books" just to make them look good from the outside, no level of banking reforms will bring about the much-vaunted sanitization of the banking industry.
Therefore this Christmas calls for a re-think. Whether we like it or not we need world political and world financial systems that allow moral restraints to emerge and to be observed. This is because our future depends not merely on finding technical solutions to the problems we face, but in having politicians and financiers whose moral authority is brought to bear in the organization of political and financial systems.
We need politicians whose upright lives will help in shaping the political society. We need financiers too who are convinced that over-maximization of profit should not be the motive for going into business. In general, we must learn to see our neigbours as human beings not just mere instruments that pave the way for our materials comfort and enrichment. The self-sacrificing service of Jesus, Mary and Joseph at first Christmas is a spur to mankind to be less self-centered and attend to the needs of their fellow men and women. Our political leaders, in particular, should learn from Christmas a lesson of altruistic dedicated service to the people. Nigerians are suffering today because our leaders hardly care a hoot about the plight of the people.
Our representatives in government hardly pay a visit to their respective constituencies to really appreciate the plight of the people they are supposed to be representing. ...Others will be celebrating the Christmas in darkness owing to power failure. Security of lives and property is not even guaranteed...
Therefore as we celebrate Christmas, we need a new humanism. Following the selfless life of Jesus, our leaders should bring light to the dark land; hope to the hopeless; justice to the oppressed and integrity to the wasteland. The people, on the other hand, should eschew vices of greed, avarice, laziness and corruption. It is no use blaming the leaders for being corrupt when the people are also guilty of the same thing.
Christmas underlines the importance of the family. Jesus was born into a family of Joseph and Mary. If you take a glance again at the Christmas Crib, you will see the family atmosphere that was the hallmark of the first Christmas in Bethlehem more than two thousand years ago. Everything in the Holy family of Jesus, Joseph and Mary bespeaks the family values of concern service, dedication and altruism. The family is the nucleus of the society.
The family plays a vital role in the upbringing of a person. All the things that shape the life of an adult are what he learned from his family or from his parents in childhood. Any wonder the family has been dubbed as "the shaper of values". The values, which the family institution imparts into the child eventually forms the superstructure around which the child's future behaviour will revolve. And for us in Africa and Nigeria, the family viewed from historical and cultural context, essentially doubles as the provider of those "social safety-nets" which a person needs to grow up to become responsible member of the society. Therefore the government should protect the traditional African family from being destroyed or deconstructed.
Lest we forget, we live in a sad world. Today laughter has evaporated from the faces of many. But Christmastime should be time to regain our laughter and sense of humour. Everything may collapse; politics may be become synonymous with hypocrisy; life itself may be very tough, but our optimism must be very high. With our laughter we can challenge the sad world to look at us and be hopeful Signing off
This column signs off today for the Christmas vacation, to resume, God willing, in the next decade, precisely in January 2010. Thanks for being a good companion in the journey of the last one year. Imagine a painstaking journey in the narrow jungle of the hungry lions without you. See you next year. Though human frailty may threaten to scuttle our deep resolve to reach the glorious end, our final destination, we will never throw in the towel. Look, those who flee the battle line are mere cowards. But we are not cowards.
As the decade bug, decade madness, the fear, the joy, or the ecstasy of entering 2010 gets better hold of you in the next 8 days, permit me to invite Susie Cooper to tell you something that you may find reassuring: "The space you leave behind is as important as the space you fill". So let us continue filling up our little spaces in the family life, at work, in the streets, in beer parlours, in stadia and at all corners of the public square where the public is waiting for you to form their consciences. And if you continue like this you will see how gradually over the years you will be a beacon of light for many despite the heavy burden on your shoulders.
Wishing you and all members of your family a peaceful Christmas and fruitful 2010. My warmest embrace!
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