A little boy was very happy to participate in a Nativity play that took place in his parish church. He played the role of an innkeeper. He was assigned to send Mary and Joseph away when they requested for a room in the inn. For that, he needed to say to them three times this sentence: “Go away, there is no room for you here.” The child splendidly played his role. But after repeating that sentence for the third time, he started to feel very sad. When Joseph and Mary were about to go away, he said to them something that was not foreseen in the script: “Wait! there is no room for you here, but there is plenty of room in my parents’ house. Their house is on the left side of the church.”
Telling a story has a subversive effect. We tell sad stories in order to acknowledge their harmful consequences. We need to repeat them again and again so that we can know how to recognize and avoid the errors of the past. We need to repeat them again and again in order to find a better solution for the present and the future. In the Bible, there are several sad stories. And even in a beautiful text like the one chosen for the Mass during the Day of the Nativity of the Lord, there is a sad and dark side of it. “The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came to be through him, but the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, but his own people did not accept him.” (John 1:9-11) We need to repeat this text again and again until the moment we are aware of our darkness and refusal. “The world did not know [the true light].” “His own people did not accept him.”
Throughout his Gospel, John will continue to use those negative forms of the verb to talk about the refusal of the world to accept God’s revelation. The world did not know the one through whom it was created. The Word came into the human story but was rejected by his own people. Nevertheless, the Word continues to be spread everywhere. The Word is given in the most fragile, but powerful way: becoming a child to bring out the best in us. The Word is given in the context of a freedom that is intimately related to redemption. The Word is deeply sown in the heart of human beings and is patiently waiting for their answer.
That is why in the same Gospel, there is also a possibility for a positive answer: “to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God.” (John 1:12) As the darkness has not overcome the light, a negative answer has not overcome the positive one. Yes, it is possible to accept to be children of God. Being children of God, the unique mention of this expression in John’s Gospel, is accepting God’s plan of salvation for us. Being children of God is letting him scatter our darkness by his light. Being children of God is recognizing our darkness by allowing the light of God to illumine all places of darkness in our own lives and in our own world. Being children of God is becoming holy people capable of seeing the light of truth. Let’s listen to Fr. D’Alzon, our Founder: “The One who is ‘God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God,’ it is he who dazzles the Saints with his brightness. God the Father had given them more perfect eyes to see and they see, they contemplate this more abundant light of truth. For our soul light consists in understanding the truth. The Word, the eternal pronouncement of God, presents himself to their gaze —and in his light, in his eternal light, they see the light that suits their needs. ‘Lord, you have shone the light of your countenance upon us — you have filled my heart with joy’ (Ps 4:7 Vulgate). And what do they see? They behold the happiness of the saints; they marvel at the company to which they have been raised. They admire the royal vesture in which they themselves are now clad. Above all, they admire God’s own glory and everything this glory offers them: its drunken delights, its rapture, its contemplation. Yes, they are fully satisfied, ‘Lord, I shall be satisfied when thy glory appears’ (Ps 16:15 Vulgate).” (Spiritual Writings, p. 982)
The world we are living in is very dark: wars and conflicts, division and polarization, pollution and inflation, civil unrest and political instability. It is by acknowledging our darkness and our inability to scatter it by ourselves that we are more willing to let the light of God illumine our lives. With confidence and openness, we can still say: there is plenty of room for God in our hearts and homes. What if the brokenness of our world opens a space through which the light and the life of God enter into our lives? What if through the purifying and redeeming power of the Emmanuel, God-with-us, the destructive power of our world becomes the transformative power of God in our lives? One thing that we are sure of is this: The Word of God became a human being to share with us our condition, to transform us from within and to lift us up to God. “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” For Saint Augustine, the Word is gold and flesh is grass. In his sermon 69, he said: “What is, ‘The Word was made Flesh?’ The gold became grass. It became grass for to be burned; the grass was burned, but the gold remained; in the grass It perishes not, indeed, It changed the grass. How did It change it? It raised it up, quickened it, lifted it up to heaven, and placed it at the right Hand of the Father.”
Merry Christmas to you and to your loved ones!
Fr. Chi Ai Nguyen, A.A.
Provincial Superior
