REFLECTION
Christmas:
The Feast of God's Empathy
At Christmas God becomes human. God deeply
wishes to embrace the human experience and becomes one like us. In modern
terms, Christmas could be called the celebration of God’s empathy. Empathy is
the ability to understand reality the way another person experiences it. To
exercise the gift of empathy means to be able to walk in the other person’s
shoes and understand and share that person’s view, and feelings, without
judging. Empathy requires our own ability to be open to our own emotions. I
believe it is a wonderful way to reflect about Christmas: God deeply desires to
share the great human adventure with us. God becomes human in radical openness
to us and to our emotions, struggles and joys. God shows absolute empathy towards
us.
Any liturgical celebration comes with a call, a mission
attached to it. We contemplate and celebrate mystery of the Nativity, at the
same time that we embrace the call to empathy. If God has become human as an
act of absolute empathy towards us, we are also called to become more human. We
become more human as long as we are able to show empathy to others. We are
called to understand, rather than to judge; we are called to share in joys and
anxieties, rather than undermine other’s experiences; we are called to listen
and communicate, the way God listens and communicates with us.
Christmas shows us the passion with which God exercises
empathy towards us. At the Christmas Midnight Mass we will read Paul’s letter
to Titus, where it says that God seeks a people passionate for doing what is
right. We are invited to be people of empathy with the same passion God shows
empathy in the mystery of the Nativity—which is the same passion with which
Jesus—the God made human—will live the rest of his life.
From this blog we want to wish a Blessed Christmas to all
the benefactors and friends of the Community of Saint Paul. May it be an
opportunity for all of us to become more human, sharing in God’s empathy
towards us.
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