Spirituality

In the department of Tacuarembó (Uruguay), where the density of population does not reach 6 inhabitants pro km2, our brothers (Fr. Angelo, Fr. Wagner and Br. Victor) will offer this year to the local Christian community the joy of a Christmas celebration around the altar.

Christmas is a celebration shared throughout a large part of the world. It is celebrated with family, friends and all the important people in our lives.

Drawing near to Christmas, a certain nostalgia rises up within me, of my childhood home in Paraguay: the little nativity scene prepared with shrubs and mud statues, seasonal fruit that the family, reunited on Christmas Eve, shared at dinner, the Rosary and wishes for a “Merry Christmas”.

This year, far away from this family warmth, Christmas will have a new sense since it will be experienced with my religious community in the rural communites of the new mission in Uruguay. After many years, these communities will again be able to celebrate Christmas with the Eucharist. Thanks to the Betharram missionary ministry, Christmas will have another value, another way of embodying faith in our life, another way of discovering and contemplating Jesus in the life of the community.

But, beyond the traditions or the things that generate our expectations, what is Christmas? Christmas, as God’s intervention in human history, is a feast which through celebrations or events, renews the event of the incarnation of the Son of God in our humanity. One could say with St Michael “What a sight!”.

I cannot help contemplating the “willingness” of Mary and Joseph in considering the mystery of the incarnation. In the first place, it is the same God that takes the initiative of revealing himself through Mary’s “Ecce Ancilla” and Joseph’s obedience. Then there is the joy that gives rise to the work of God, expressed in Mary’s Song. And, finally, the courage of Joseph in going to Bethlehem and in finding a place so humble, yet at the same time great, so that the Saviour could be born.

The “Here I am” of Mary, of Joseph and, above all, of the Child Jesus, manifests itself in this little manger, and is expressed in a fragile, poor, vulnerable manner. Nevertheless, God wanted to pitch his tent among us so that all these troubles might find meaning in the yearning of Mercy and Love.

The Nativity is a marvellous sight, which amazed St Michael Garicoits. For Michael, the incarnation of the Son of God was the secret resource which drove him to the experience of dying to self, becoming small, like nothing. In contemplating the Son taking on the human condition, St Michael became conscious of his own vulnerable, poor, wretched humanity. But in that crib, in this poverty, he nevertheless identified a path, a path marked out by God in a real and particular way; and, in that aspect, St Michael always managed to discern, to see, to admire and to live faithfully to the plan of God, revealed in the Child humbled and broken in the crib.

This same intuition and this same spirit accompany me in this stage of my missionary placement, as pastor and, above all, as religious brother.

Being an event that helps to redefine our life and response to God, I’m using the wait for Christmas as a good time to see and judge myself, inside and outside, in such a way that Betharramite action will be in keeping with the Will of the Father; and that the “Here I Am” we profess will be a true display of God’s intervention in the humanity of those who share our life and faith.

That fact that I live in Uruguay connects me to the situation of those who live with us and who observe us, so that they can really be conscious of the goodness of God and of His mercy and, above all, of His closeness to us, in the life of our religious community or in the personal life of each brother,
The birth of the Child Jesus as an opening and self-revelation of God for us, invites us to rediscover his will in our desolation and, through our relationships with others, by sharing the gift of charisma, to transmit the infinite love of God within the limits of our own position.

The celebration of the Nativity, like Betharram, pushes me to renew with fervour my love and faith in the Father, raising up the motto “Fiat Voluntas Dei” like a flag that directs us to the right path and to observance of charity. To celebrate this event means to go back and discern the historical event as a current, real and particular manifestation. If we don’t focus our attention again on God’s involvement in our lives and if we don’t share the joy of love with others, we fall into the same mediocrity as the Israelites, hiding that Light under the bed which should instead light up the whole house, or keeping quiet about that announcement which should reach to the ends of the earth.

The nativity scene shows us how to communicate our experience of God to those who have not yet tried to encounter Him. Our experience of God, which comes from our meeting with Him, is a joyous and rich display of hope lived out with those who have felt abandoned, forgotten.

The “Here I Am” of Jesus, contemplated and embraced by St Michael and inherited by us through the Charism, is not a place of refuge uttered only in sanctuaries or in great events, but is a continuous pilgrimage of our hearts towards the Heart of Jesus, in the style of «Campo Volante». That is to say, being ready and willing to live the adventure of the Gospel, to which we have been called. May the choice of a Betharramite always have, as a reference point, the divine mystery of God; May His presence be perceived in the light of faith and may we, by grace, be able to live as useful, willing and able men, in the will of God extending that «Here I am» of the Incarnate Word.

Victor Torales scj