The Christmas festival celebrated on 25th December every year is the biggest feast of the Christians. Globally, it has become a commercial and corporate festival. Rather, it is a whole season.
The religious and spiritual significance of this festival has its own place, while its social and cultural aspect is very wonderful. This festival is a family feast. People who live outside their hometown, city and country, gather together with the family after a year and despite their differences they start a new beginning.
The renewed writer Charles Dickens was a man who is known as an inventor of modern Christmas. He established the new traditions of celebrating Christmas through his writings. There are many traditions and characters associated with Christmas that came into existence under many interesting backgrounds. All of them aim to share the joy of Christmas.
Most of the Christians of Pakistan are not economically, educationally and socially sound and stable but they still celebrate their religious values with great devotion and zeal. Well, everyone celebrates this festival in their own way, but mostly and generally it is celebrated as a family event, without family Christmas there is no pure joy.
For those who live in cities, the night of the 24th is like “Chand Raat” where most people do shopping and the night of the 24th starts with prayers services and holy mass at about ten o’clock. The Christmas cake cutting ceremony also takes place after prayer and Santa Claus presents gifts to the children.
In special homily the meaning and true purpose of Christmas is highlighted during prayers, Choir sing Christmas carols. At the end of the service, Christmas blessings and greetings are given to each other.
The 25th of December also begins about 8 AM in the morning with the series of prayers which continue till noon. In the prayers, everyone, especially the children, wear new clothes and jewelry. Only after the prayers, the most important part of the children “Eidi” takes place. Women get busy cooking food and house chores. On this occasion, Christmas cakes and sweets are distributed to neighbors and relatives. Efforts are made to wish and greet all the relatives and consult with those who were disconnected.
Today, because of social media, people console themselves by sending images on WhatsApp and other social platforms but I remember how happy we used to be to receive a Christmas card from loved ones in the village on Christmas. Giving clothes and rations to relatives was considered a noble practice. It is still practiced by various people today, but the showoff has become more and the generosity is less. Love, humanity and collective development have been replaced by individuality. Christmas is the name itself of simplicity, generosity and sharing, self-denial, rejection is its main attribute. The birth of Jesus Christ in a crib was a sign that God does not love the outward glory of man but his/her inwardness.
Today, many people consider Christmas as a corporate and commercial event. In their views, Christmas dinners and parties are the real purpose of it and to establish relationships, while this day is a day for us to share God’s blessings with other human beings. It teaches sharing and invites us to give confidence, encouragement and courage to the downtrodden, troubled and sad people, to make them experience belonging and love in life.
Christmas provides an opportunity for the Christian family to give new intensity and energy to the year’s bitter experiences, cold and dull relationships.
By forgiving each other, we can make a new beginning. We can put aside the negative events and fears of the past and start a new life with new hope and ambition. Rather, in the same way that God forgot the past of man and started a new relationship and expressed his divine love in practice. Christmas removes the feeling of deprivation and low state of man.
Christmas brings a message of reconciliation, peace and new hope to humanity. This practice teaches us that for what one loves, one has to leave one’s self, name and position and face humility and reluctance.
Christmas reminds us that if the Lord Jesus Christ could be born in a manger adopting meekness and humility, then what humility we humans need to adopt. Christmas gives us an opportunity and an invitation every year to seek God not in the manger of our homes and churches, but in the manger of our hearts, the manger of our hearts, clean of hatred, evil, envy, greed and wantonness. Do it so that the Lord can dwell in the manger of our hearts and the light of God is reflected in our attitudes and character.
So, this Christmas, give a chance to awaken a new person within you who believes in humanity, who considers serving and doing well to people as virtue. I think that if we start practicing the teachings of religion, our world will become a beautiful world; otherwise people will continue to hate others in the name of religion.
Christmas invites us to promote the culture of life and love.
Merry Christmas to you
