Christmas brings out the innate feeling and wish in us that we want to be remembered – This is the meaning of exchanging Christmas greetings and gifts. Christmas is celebration of God remembering His created human beings. When His crown of creation deviated from His design, God did not abandon His own making but He remembered human beings and came down to this world searching for them. God’s greatest gift is the Baby Jesus. During the conversation Jesus had with Nicodemus, a well-respected Jewish leader, it is mentioned that ‘God so loved the world that He gave His one and Only son’ (Jn 3:16) to bring back the human beings to the desired path of life as per God’s design and roadmap.
Recently I was reading the novel Every Breath (2018) by Nicholas Sparks: Two people from the ends of the world, one from Africa and another one from the USA, had a chance encounter on a beach. They become interested in each other and like each other and fall in love with each other. It is the story of how this love was kept alive and burning transcending decades, continents, and the bittersweet workings of fate. Eventually their deepest loyalty for each other brings them together and they get united in love and life after about 40 years – Love has not time limit and true love has no condition.
The destiny that matters most in life is the one concerning love. But often we find that destiny and love collide – The destiny of the created human beings and the infinite love of the Creator collided on the Cross. When we are deeply loved by someone we feel strengthened and while we love someone deeply we are filled with courage to do our best for the other. The deep longing or the crucial question to or expectation from others is: ‘Will I be remembered? Who will cry when I die?’ Christmas season has its central point that God remembered us, not only collectively but also individually. And we are invited today to remember as many as possible who have walked with us along the road of life. It is a fact that love always seems to require sacrifice. And the outcome could be either grief or gratitude. When our love is futile we are filled with grief but when our love is gift-wrapped in hope, we experience gratitude. Christmas is the meeting point of grief and gratitude, that is, the sin of humankind and the grace of God – It is the selfless love that transforms grief into gratitude.
All these one could glean from the above mentioned novel. And it very much suits the Christmas situation, where we and God from very far away abodes meet in Christmas and we fall in love with the simplicity and humility of the divine Baby; and He in turn falls in love with our vulnerability and inadequacy to make us full and overflowing with His divine love. This meeting of divinity and humanity is to become aware of ourselves as the Baby Jesus knew who He was but at the same time He also remembered who He should be to us. He poured forth his love on us even when we are neither worthy nor eligible. And He asks us today whether we could reflect, radiate, and relive Him and whether we could become ‘every breath’ of Jesus for others. Let us reflect and radiate the Babe of Bethlehem today and all days to come.
The Jesuit Management wishes you all a merry Christmas and a joyful and successful New Year 2023. Let us look forward to continue our walk together in the formation of our students as Leaders inspired by selfless service to humankind. Our love for our students at present and their gratitude in the future would be an ongoing Christmas celebration of life. Christmas tells us: It is not prosperity but peace of mind that matters in life. Christmas is a celebration of integration: God integrating humans with Himself; and Humans integrating with each other.
On behalf of the Jesuit Management, unit heads, officials and administrators, I thank you all for your contribution, all through this calendar year, for academic excellence, students formation, and institutional growth. May the outstretched little hands of the Baby Jesus enclose all of us together. Happy Christmas and happy New Year filled with joy of heart.
Francis P Xavier SJ
17Dec2022