Share Christmas

Too often, and to many, Christmas is a time for joyful celebration. Rightly so, because Christmas is about the wonderful event of Holy God sending His Holy Son to unholy humanity, so that in the Son, Jesus, God finally is Immanuel, a “God with us”.

This is a cause for joy. There is no event more sublime than this to make us celebrate in the most sacred way.

But as we sing “Joy to the world”, let us please remember as well that this world includes “Silent Nights” for those who are lonely, who are mourning, who are sad, who feel abandoned and rejected, who are homeless, who seek refuge but there seems to be “no room for them in the inns” of our borders and hearts. They hear no “Jingle Bells” or can’t sing “Kasadya ning taknaa” in the midst of their silent sobs and tears, in the midst of their children and infants dying of hunger and thirst.

Let us include them in our prayers and in our thoughts this Christmas. Let us hold hands with them and bring them with us to the manger of the Child Jesus, beckon them into our hearts and into our souls so that, together with them, we sing “Come, all ye faithful” to see the “God with us” lying in a crib of meager straw.

Please be merry, but in solidarity with those hardly able to be, this Christmas.

BEN S. MALAYANG III
University President