[OPINION] The ugly truth about Christmas

The glorious way of depicting the Belen or the Nativity scene in time for Christmas – the well-polished faces of Joseph, Mary and the other animals surrounding the Baby Jesus – is far from anything beautiful based on the accounts written in the Bible.

Imagine this biblical narrative on the birth of Jesus Christ: “Mary gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in swaddling cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.” (Luke 2:7)

It is worth reflecting to reckon the scandalous mystery and story of God becoming man: Jesus was born in a disgusting place! It is awful. It is far from anything novel or poetic.

Besides, it is very unhygenic to be born in a place where, most likely, animal shit is everywhere.

And yet it is where Jesus was born: where the ancient prophecies foretold were fulfilled and where the angels made their heavenly chant “Gloria in excelsis Deo!”

Deeper celebration

Reflecting on these, I see two dimensions worth pondering how to make sense of this ugly truth of the original Christmas story which, I hope, can lead us to a deeper celebration of the holidays and beyond.

The first aspect is a collective invitation to our consciences as we relate with the poor.

Jesus was born poor and, similar to the experience of many of our poor sisters and brothers, his family was discriminated against, marginalized and rejected badly as “there was no guest room available for them.”

Let’s face it: a part of our relatively privileged selves, no matter how politically correct we think we are, still do despise and think badly of the poor – especially those who live in “squatter” communities or those homeless street dwellers – as troublemakers, “baduy,” criminals, substance addicts, susceptible to manipulative forces and uneducated. Its as if their dignity as human beings is but a complement to their existence.

Mother Teresa once said that “the poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty.” This is true and I was able to confirm this during my apostolate work among the homeless along Tayuman in Manila under Fr. Flavie Villanueva’s SVD Kalinga Center back in 2018.

Sharing meals with exactly the same food being served to those who were being welcomed in Kalinga allowed me to hear the stories of Nanay Yolly, Mang Randy and his two kids and several others.

Living either in Luneta or in front of a beautiful church near Malacañang, Nanay Yolly was once a “call girl,” she told me, that had “big time” clients. Despite funding her family’s needs in the province, her being a “prosti” was enough to have her condemned by her siblings, husband and children which probably threw her to depression and thus ended up in the streets where she accordingly “found home.” I will never forget her because after sharing meals with her for the first time, the Sundays I spent in Kalinga for a year always began with Nanay Yolly’s embrace and kisses to me, her “anak na kaibigan.”

Mang Randy who was 58 when I met him, on the other hand, was living with his two kids – a 5-year-old boy and a 4-year-old girl – along Oroquieta Road in Manila. Over lunch, I learned that he was an OFW who was able to work in Riyadh, Toronto and London. It was his being into gambling and womanizing (he has a wife and had two affairs) that made him terribly broke, forcing him to become a street dweller. He earns for his two youngest kids (he has 21 children who “turned their backs” on him) by begging and from dentistry and medical university students who pays him for demonstration experiments.

Reaching out

I am convinced that no matter how noble or good feeding programs or Christmas gift-giving activities are, they will never be enough.

Relating to the poor should not just end by satisfying their immediate needs. They have stories to tell, let us reach out by listening to them. They have names, let us reach out to them by asking for their names and calling them by name. They are unloved, let us reach out to them by loving them and becoming friends with them and not just treat them as mere beneficiaries of our seasonal goodness.

The rejection and discrimination that Nanay Yolly, Mang Randy and many others is not an alien experience to the family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. As we adorn the Belen with all the colorful decors that we can lavishly think of, may we also welcome and embrace the poor.

The second aspect that’s worth reckoning in prayer over the ugly truth of Christmas is more of a personal invitation to conversion.

Whenever we go to church, we wear the best that we could and thanking God for the good things we have such as our talents, strengths, loving relationships, good health, etc

But what about the areas that we are not good at? Those areas in our lives that we are disgusted with?

All of us do have hidden skeletons within our being and among them, I think, is our refusal to admit that we are weak, fragile and vulnerable. We’d always prefer to impose on ourselves and to others.

The Christian tradition tells us that Jesus Christ is God and yet this “Almighty God” was born weak and “wrapped in swaddling cloths” in the ugliest place where, I can realistically imagine, the scent of animal shit and the disturbing noise of farm animals.

This irony, I think, invites us to come into terms and let God penetrate those shitty areas in our lives that we are disgusted with, ashamed of and would rather not be exposed such as our personal frustrations, our broken relationships and others.

Perhaps, by doing so, God can transform the shitty aspects of our lives so that God can still be actually glorified there – like that once shit-smelling place in Bethlehem where angels sang “Glory to God in the highest!” – and also for our benefit and our need for healing.

May the ugliness of Christmas draw our hearts to a refreshing and beautiful perspective in relating with others, especially the poor, and with our individual selves as we start a new year ahead of us. – Rappler.com

Ted Tuvera earned his journalism degree from the University of Santo Tomas. He covered a major beat for a national daily for 3 years. Currently, he is a seminarian in the Archdiocese of Capiz.