21st December 1997

The joys of Christmas are for all

By Francis Vethanayagam

Let us not forget that Christ was closer to the poor than the rich. To identify with the poor is a very difficult thing, but Christmas is about giving not only to our families, but more importantly to those who do not have, those oppressed by social injustice, those living in poverty and denied their birthrights.

Therefore when we prepare for the birth of the Prince of Peace, we should strive to be one with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Today our country is faced with a grave and unprecedented crisis. Thousands have lost their lives in the senseless war. Thousands more have been rendered homeless and sheltered in refugee camps undergoing immense suffering and untold hardships.

How many children have been orphaned and how many parents have lost their children?

Do we realise that in our own parishes and country, hunger, want of shelter, health hazards and other problems the poor and needy have to face and undergo?

Think of the number of elders who have been disowned, discarded and abandoned by their own children.

This Christmas affords us a golden opportunity to curtail on lavish spending and feasting and to make every attempt to build an environment which would provide these suffering and less fortunate ones a better living for the joys of Christmas are not only for the rich and privileged but for one and all.

It is no longer Christmas but X'mas to the world today. The material aspects have got the better of the spiritual ones.

This be due to the fact that Christians live in a modern and secular society in which they do not have the strength and conviction to change their attitudes. It could not be denied that the material aspect of the birth feast with age old traditions and customs should be done away with, for Christmas is a birthday and a special one unlike any other. Spiritually, Advent means a period or time of preparation. It is a period of hope and joy at the Saviour's coming. It calls for repentance, turning away from sin and looking towards God. It is a time to give up false values that are destroying us and reflect on the Christmas message of peace, love, justice, oneness, goodwill and forgiveness. This will put Christ right back as the central figure in all our activities connected with this great day, remembering that Christ must not be a stranger or isolated at his own birth feast, instead integral in all our celebrations.

"Peace on earth to men of goodwill". Each day another Christ is born. Christmas means social peace, peace in our country, peace among nations and with our neighbours.

In every nook and corner of the world people would sing "Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth".

But unfortunately we neither see the glory of God nor peace on earth today. Peace and truth is ever and ever reminded to the world by the birth of the Prince of Peace on Christmas day.

If we look back at the first Christmas, although to the shepherds on the hill top it was a calm and silent night, in reality the night that Jesus came into the world was never a silent night to the outside world.

It was a night of turmoil, despair, horror and fear. Man was rising against man, exploitation and corruption was at its highest level, nations against nations and it was against this background that the Messiah was born and sacrificed his life for the salvation of mankind.

The birth of Christ itself went unnoticed, unheard and unannounced, although it was a birth of a God King, taking a human shape. The Jews and religious leaders at that time ignored the event because they misunderstood God's message.

They least expected the Messiah to arrive in this manner, being born in a stable, instead expected a royal birth as that of a King or Prince with all pomp and pageantry in keeping with their interpretation of the teaching and belief.

Let those of us of the present generation not for a moment forget that when we celebrate the birth of Christ we celebrate not merely the birth of one who lived, but one who is still alive and will live till the end of time.

A candle for Christmas

Christmas is a time to give, and giving, es- sentially means sharing your blessings with those who are deprived. Especially, with children. The world is so vast, and if we look around there are millions of children who are deprived of food, education, clothing and above all love.

With this in mind, the Association For Lighting a Candle (AFLAC) has over the past two years brought light to the lives of little children during Christmas time, who have no home to call their own.

During Christmas, perhaps, these children feel it more than any other time of the year. The children from the Jeevani Home in Moratuwa look forward to the AFLAC Christmas party as an annual event now. Some of the children are bit more fortunate than the other inmates who remain at the Convent during holiday time. Some children have a place to go to and call it 'home'.

But there are the ones who have no home at all to go to, and they are the ones who remain in the Jeevani Home even during holidays. But thanks to the nuns, they are cared for and not abandoned, although the nuns too find it hard to keep up with the rising cost of living and the basic needs of the children. There are over a hundred girls in the Home and at least thirty to forty children remain in the Home during Christmas.

Last Christmas the AFLAC gave these children a Christmas party with a difference. The venue was in the home of its President Capt. Elmo Jayawardena. The garden faces the river.

The party started around six in the evening. There was a beautifully decorated Christmas tree and other trees too were beautifully lit up. The children arrived accompanied by three nuns from the Home, their faces aglow with happiness. They felt wanted. Members of the AFLAC welcomed them so warmly. Each child was given an entrance gift which had a parcel of school books for the new school year. They too remembered to bring a little souvenir to present to the President and his wife, and this they did under the Christmas tree. It was a beautiful statue of a little guardian angel! So, very thoughtful of them, I thought.

There were games and competitions and the children danced away their cares. The winners received very useful and appropriate gifts. In addition there was the singing of Christmas carols under the Christmas tree and other sing songs for the children.

The dinner was sumptuous and beautifully laid out exclusively for the children and the inmates of the Jeevani Home. These children although deprived of many things in life, never, even for a moment showed it. Their manners and behaviour were remarkable!

Under the starlit sky and the beautifully illuminated garden facing the river, came the most important moment. The arrival of Santa Claus! The announcement came for the children to gather near the end of the garden facing the river, to witness the arrival of Santa by boat. What excitement! The children were fascinated. The big burly Santa got off the boat and made his way towards the garden ringing his bell. The children started to sing "Jingle bells" and Santa led them round the garden and stopped near the Christmas Tree. Well, he had questions to ask the kids, especially, whether they were good the whole year through! In fact Santa knew some of their good and weak points too. The Christmas gifts were then distributed by Santa. These were parcels of items that the children really needed very badly. Each child received a gift to the value of rupees five hundred.

In addition, Santa also gave each child a bag full of goodies, like sweets, chocolates, biscuits, cheese and various kinds of other eatables. In fact, before his arrival, Santa even had hidden some gifts under the bushes and how the children went round with him to find them. He also gave away two bicycles for the girls to cycle around in the Home.

After Santa's departure, much to the disappointment of the children, came the finale. A little fireworks display. The children lit fireworks, so joyfully, happiness written all over each little face. Some of the fireworks that lit the night sky, perhaps they had never seen before.

All in all, these little children had one of the most beautiful and memorable evenings in their lives. The joy it brought them, will no doubt remain as happy childhood memories for a very long time. All these were possible because there were some individuals and organisations who cared and reached out through AFLAC to sponsor this Christmas party.

I will always remember this evening as a day when many candles were lit to bring light to the lives of those beautiful children. This year too AFLAC is making arrangements to have a similar party for these children to share the joy and love of Christmas. – Arundathy Gunawardena

Are we really Christians?

By Kumudini Hettiarachchi

Why was Jesus Christ, the Son of God born in a humble stable or as we call it a "harakmaduwa" (cattle-shed)? Why did this Babe have only swaddling clothes to cover His nakedness? Why did he, proclaimed as the King of kings, have only a bundle of straw to cradle His head?

These were the questions I was pondering on that day last week when I was in Nugegoda, being jostled by the Christmas shoppers. I had gone to Nugegoda town to buy a few decorations and balloons to make my nearly-five daughter happy this Christmas.

But these questions bothered me. My daughter had been insisting on an answer, after the nativity play in her Montessori.

As I bargained with the roadside hawker over the price of balloons, I heard, "Hark the herald angels sing, "Glory to the newborn King!" blaring from a shop close-by.

How incongruous those words sound, when one pictures Christ lying in the most humble-ever abode, a cattle-shed. To me, and I presume to all Christians, that picture signifies that Christ came not only for the sinner, as the gospels say, but also for the poor, hungry, downtrodden, oppressed, traumatized and humiliated millions.

As I lingered on the pavements of Nugegoda, window-shopping, I saw this little waif, with her leg bandaged with a dirty cloth, peering into a shop. She had her nose pressed against the window pane and was staring at the fluffy dogs, golden teddy bears, beautiful dolls with long tresses and other such toys crowding the counters where wealthy parents were indulging their children with whatever money could buy.

The little beggar girl is from a family which haunts the Nugegoda town. The family - father, mother and three children live under a tree near Anula Vidyalaya, like they have been doing for the past nine or ten years. Those days I used to see the mother heavy with the second child, dragging the elder girl, who was then a toddler, begging on the streets. Then one day, when the emaciated mother was clutching her third child to her worn-out breast I asked her where they were from.

She and her husband, a labourer, were from Embilipitiya. When they married they were comfortable, but her husband became "pissu" after some time and they fell on hard times. Then the eldest child came, they could hardly keep body and soul together and they were chased from their rented home. They had no place to go. They walked to the big city, Colombo, begging on the way, resting under trees and taking shelter under shop-awnings during the rains. Bustling Nugegoda seemed a good place to stay. Now the children were big and could find a few rupees.

I gave her what I could and boarded a bus for home. Across the road from the bus halt where I alighted was 10 year old Kumar, selling bright yellow oranges for Rs. 10 each. He lived on the canal bank. His mother was a servant and his father an alcoholic who wasted all the money. Did he go to school? I asked. He did for a while, but then he had to supplement the family income, so he left his books behind, he said sadly.

His routine was like that of any working adult, or even tougher. He got up at the crack of dawn and helped his mother make their meagre breakfast of roti and plain tea, without sugar. As his mother had left for work by that time, he washed his little sister and left her at a neighbour's house. He came to his counter, a box heaped with oranges, by the side of the High Level Road at 7 am and would leave only at about 6 pm.

Kumara's earnings varied from day to day. If he sold 100 oranges a day he would be given Rs. 75. Could he sell so many? No, he couldn't. So he often went home with about Rs. 20 or 30 after being in the sweltering heat all day.

But he got his breakfast, mid-morning tea and lunch, he assured me. Just then a middle-aged man, whom Kumar indicated was the "mahattaya" (owner of the oranges) came and handed him a small polythene bag full of plain tea. As he looked at me suspiciously, I hurriedly purchased a couple of oranges and left.

Do these people, the beggar family at Nugegoda, the Kumars of Sri Lanka, the harassed and ill-treated child-servants, the refugee children, the children living amidst the guns and bombs in the north, the east and the boundary villages know that Christmas is just a few days away?

That Christ came for the likes of them, not for hypocrites like us Christians, who use specious arguments to spend thousands and thousands of rupees on clothes and toys when so many children are starving and do not have even tatters to cover their nakedness.

I am not urging sheer asceticism or fanatical frugality. But are we, Christians, not bending religion to suit our indifference to the suffering and privation of others? What is the price of a kilo of rich cake? It is nothing less than Rs. 500. What is the price of wine? What of the price of toys?

Cannot children of rich families make do with one toy and give may be a cheaper one to a less fortunate child? How many parents while shopping for clothes, toys and other goodies show their children the half-naked starvelings on the pavement? How often do they tell their fortunate kids that the children on the streets eat scraps or throw aways from the dustbins to survive?

So as we don our Christmas best and troop for midnight mass or tuck into the nicely roasted turkey or sip the wine or eat the rich cake let us spare a thought for the children of the have-nots who dare only to stare, and long for a square meal even on Christmas Day.

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