EDante, AIT home 25 December 2018 The evening of 15 December was the highlight of the annual AIT Catholic Community Christmas caroling. It was the time to visit Prof Karl Weber and celebrate Christmas with him together with his household members and about 40 special guests, mostly retired expats from Germany and other parts of Europe. We were asked to fetch Father Joe Maier who lives in the slums of Klong Toey on our way to Prof Weber’s residence. Father Joe just returned to Bangkok from the US and was still recovering from the long flight. Being 79 years old, he went to visit his remaining family members while he is still able to travel. As he emerged from the entrance of his Mercy Centre building we saw a weak and ageing Father Joe in his casual white shirt and dark pants. Seeing us in our colorful Christmas carol attire, he stopped to ask if he looked okay and we all assured him that he is fine. While in the car, he sighed wearily about the political crisis that heavily polarizes people in the US into pro or against the current administration. But more so, about how Americans turned Christmas celebration into a purely secular and commercial holiday season. People no longer tell about God and the birth of Christ and nor use the Holy Name of Christ in their greetings. The truth is that the whole world is making Christmas celebration less Christian. We treat Christmas as a holiday of leisure and consumption, in marked contrast to the true spirit of Christmas. We gave more importance to decorating Christmas trees, exchanging gifts, eating the best food, shopping expensive goods and partying with families and friends. Christmas cards no longer bear the name of Christ. They read “Season’s greetings”, “Holiday season”, “Year-end celebration”, "Happy holidays", etc. because people started to believe that the Holy Name of Jesus is offensive to other religions. Through the messages contained in the book True Life in God, Jesus expresses his sadness about the way we come to celebrate Christmas these days: “Today I come with peace-terms and a Message of Love, but the peace I am offering is blasphemed by the earth, and the Love I am giving them is mocked and jeered in this Eve of My Birth. Mankind is celebrating these days without My Holy Name. My Holy Name has been abolished and they take the day of My birth as a great holiday of leisure, worshiping idols. Satan has entered into the hearts of My Children, finding them weak and asleep. I have warned the world…” (True Life in God). It is good that God still addresses us as “My Children” although we no longer treat Him as our Father. But God is good and is always good. He has warned us through many natural disasters that happened and those that are yet to come. He wanted to draw our full attention to the true meaning of Christmas and the good it is offering us. The truth is that Christmas is about healing of our soul. We know of our body well and how to make it healthy and strong and able to make us look good and allow us to travel around and do our work without disruption. Sickness of the body brings all sorts of problems, not only physical not also mentally and emotionally and affects relationships, income and overall state of happiness. We want to keep healthy to the extent possible. It is therefore to no surprise that we see a marked expansion of health products and services worldwide. But where do we go when the soul is diseased, broken and poisoned? Do we even know the condition of our soul? Man is both body and soul. The body will have its end when we die but the soul does not die, it continues to live in eternity. The soul is diseased when it is deprived of its true origin, God. When one lives without the true faith, or in complete rejection of God, the soul is broken. The soul is poisoned when it is laden with sins. The Church teaches about the seven deadly sins of lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride. They are called deadly because they can “kill” the spiritual part of the soul. The soul of a sinner is filled with guilt that reproaches and causes nightmares at sleep. It is devoid of sanctifying grace that gives faith, hope and love. When a sinner reaches old age, his soul suffers in agony, remorse and terror as God gradually reveals its true condition. On the same book True Life in God, Jesus explains this truth: “When the hour of Darkness comes, I will show you your insides; I will turn your soul inside out and when you will see your soul as black as coal, not only will you experience a distress like never before, but you will beat your breast with agony that your own darkness is far worse than the darkness surrounding you. I will make human life scarcer than ever before; then when My wrath will be appeased, I will set My Throne in each one of you and together with one voice and one heart and one language you will praise Me, the Lamb” (True Life in God). What Christ is offering us at Christmas is healing of soul and through that healing an inner peace and tranquility. It is the forgiveness of sins and removal of guilt that he offers so that the soul is alive and active again. Jesus can take a soul back to the freshness of a child’s soul when through penance the sinner washes, detoxicates, cures and recomposes his poor soul. Forgiveness and healing is found in no one else except through the name of Jesus. For there is no other name under heaven given to mankind (Acts 4:12). Only if we fully appreciate the meaning and significance of what healing of souls mean and what it can bring to our lives, there is no logical explanation why we should run away from Christ at Christmas and turn Christmas into something vain and useless. When the resurrected Jesus appeared to His apostles he made his peace offering to us very clear: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (John 14:27). Father Joe was truly relieved to be back to Bangkok where he can see Christmas being lived in Christ and with Christ. He said he was grateful for the religious freedom given by the Thai people. He was happy to join the Christmas carol at Prof Karl Weber’s together with his beloved children of the AIT Catholic Community. On the eve of Christ’s birth, while saying the Christmas mass at AIT, Father Joe astonished us by telling that his greatest joy and honour in life is with the AIT Catholic Community. Father Joe has been our priest for more than 40 years, yet he is well-known globally for his charity work towards children and communities in the slums of Bangkok, for which he had received many international and national recognition, and had written several books. More information about his work is available from the website https://www.mercycentre.org/. So on this Christmas day, may you seek healing and forgiveness from Jesus through the sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist and be filled with peace and joy that comes from Jesus and may your family and work be blessed now and for the coming new year. |
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