Reach out with Love for Others

The greatest gift we receive at Christmas is the one we receive every year: Jesus Christ. And with that gift comes an obligation. KELVIN BANDA OP explains.

Every year, as early as October, shops in our malls get decorated, alerting people—and especially Christians—that Christmas is approaching.

Christmas brings us much excitement and sometimes even fear. Excitement probably because we will prepare a feast to eat, and fearful because we may not have enough to eat and share with others.

At Christmas we feel a need to show and share the real love we have for others. Sometimes we may struggle to find special gifts which can show our love. Sometimes we might even give and receive gifts that are not needed.

The perennial question is: What gift do we buy for someone who has everything? And another question: What do we teach children about Christmas?

Christmas in itself is a most precious gift to humanity. Christmas, the birth of the Redeemer, is a gift given to us freely by God. This gift needs to be shared authentically with others. Jesus Christ is the gift.

This Christmas, we need to help our children, relatives and friends to appreciate the great gift of our Heavenly Father to us when he sent his only begotten Son to the earth.

This Christmas, let us be fully human and fully alive by going out of our homes and communities to help those who are most in need. The gift of Christmas should not be just about shopping for ourselves, our families and our friends. Let us shop also for those who have never given us anything.

And even when we do shop for ourselves and others, let us give one another this Christmas the most precious gifts of relationship, friendship, support, love and caring.

Many of us take our relationships and friendships for granted. After all, for most of us, there is always someone in our lives who will care and who will give us time and attention.

We must love and cherish them, of course, but the gift of Christmas is not only love for those who love and care for us. Christmas is also about loving those who do not love and care for us.

It is about giving that special gift of relationship to someone who may not give that gift in return. Our gift must be unconditional.

The gift of Christmas is sharing time as Christ Jesus did with the sick and the lonely, with widows, orphans and the lowly.

Christmas is a time of healing wounds and forgiving ourselves and others so as to receive Jesus Christ with love, joy and peace. Christmas is the time when we really need to see God descending from heaven and coming to us in human form, thereby bridging the gap left by sin.

God always gives us a gift of relationship at Christmas. We need to give back by being there for one another, for the poor, for the unloved, for prisoners and the most afflicted.

During this Christmas, let us cherish God’s great love for us, expressed through the gift of Jesus Christ.

But Christmas, then, is also a time when we must look inside ourselves to see if we have love within. St Francis once said: “We cannot give what we do not have.”

If we have the gift of love within ourselves, we should be free and able to love others genuinely this Christmas. It is this great gift, Jesus Christ, of God to us which we need to cultivate so that we may be more creative in serving God in those around us and beyond our walls.

This Christmas, let us be gifts to one another and to those in material and spiritual need. Let us celebrate Christ and be able to transform the lives of others.