A Christmas Eve Serenade
REMEMBERING Christmas past can easily bring smile to our lips and also, weirdly enough, tears to our eyes. As we celebrate this season, memories flood our minds and hearts as we go back to the times when family members gather around the table for Noche Buena on Christmas Eve while exchanging favorite memories of previous Christmases, both the sweet and bitter memories.
Let me share with you my favorite Christmas memory:
It was in 2002. I was twenty two years old and it was my first year as a seminarian at the Sacred Heart Novitiate in Novaliches. It was to be my first Christmas away from my family.
We were to be cloistered in the seminary for two years with no mobile phones, no strolling in the malls, and living with an allowance of only P150 a month. We were allowed to go home on Christmas day itself on the condition that we have to be back in the novitiate by 5:30 p.m. on the same day for the Christmas community Mass and dinner. Christmas Eve had to be spent in Sapang Palay, Bulacan among the poor people we worked with every Sunday for the whole two years.
For me, what was heartfelt and most typically “Christmas” about Christmas was the Christmas Eve—midnight Mass with my family, our Noche Buena highlighted by my mom’s special baked macaroni, my tita’s special refrigerator cake and my sister’s roasted chicken. How could I ever forget the opening of Christmas presents right after Noche Buena, the Christmas games we held for my nephews and nieces, the hanging of Christmas socks where Santa Claus can put toys and money. I was to miss all these for the first time in my life. It was almost as though the Christmas had gone out of my Christmas.
I had, however, resigned myself to this situation; my youthful Jesuit fervor that time helped me to accept this change as part of the price of following and serving God.
We had gone early to bed than the usual during Christmas Season at around 9:00 p.m. (We slept early because we rose early, at 2:45pm for the Simbang Gabi Masses at Sapang Palay.) At around 1am of December 24th, four hours after I had drifted into sleep, I was awakened by the sound of soft, distant music. It was a sound of the guitar playing softly, and an all male-choir singing “Silent Night” gently from a distance. My inquisitiveness was aroused and I asked myself where that music was coming from. I dragged myself out of the bed, and carefully opened my cubicle door so as not to disturb my other brothers who were sleeping at that time. But they were also awakened by the soft music playing and the mysterious voices that were singing Christmas carols. We were rubbing our eyes and in a half-stunned and half confused state while listening to the music from afar. I don’t remember if we say anything to each other when we got out of our cubicles, what I remember was we were all amazed to hear the voices of an all-male choir slowly coming closer and our darkened dormitory door gradually being lit up by the flickering candles that my second-year brothers held in their hands. We saw the smiling faces of our second-year brothers and our novice-masters in the midst of darkness as they continue to serenade us with Christmas carols.
I will never forget the beauty and the oddity of that moment. The feeling was quite strange and amusing. For a few moments, we, the first year men (we were nine at that time), just stood outside our cubicles, feeling the chill of the season. Too surprised to speak, overwhelmed by the moment , we just allowed ourselves to feel the joy and warmth of the announcement of Christ’s birth. Soon we began softly singing with them. Then our second year brothers led us to a solemn procession going to entrance parlor of our novitiate. The entrance gate was so memorable for us, it was the place where we began our new life as a Jesuit, and said goodbye to the world to continue a new mission in our lives. That moment the entrance parlor was full of Christmas lights and candles. Our second-year brothers took out the prayer mats and pillows from one of our chapels and turned the entrance parlor into an impromptu mini-chapel.
One of the men in the second year spoke to us and said, “we know your feeling; exactly a year ago we were in your places. We know how you miss your family, your friends especially this evening. But we wanted to assure you that we are with you, in your feeling of loneliness or fear, we will be here for you. And that I think is the message this Christmas day…”
After that, they played a familiar tune, it was my favorite Christmas song:
Paglamig ng hangin hatid ng Pasko
Nananariwa sa ‘king gunita
Ang mga nagdaan nating Pasko
Ang Noche Buena’t Simbang gabi
Narito na ang Pasko
At nangungulila’ng puso ko
Hanap-hanap, pinapangarap
Init ng pagsasalong tigib sa tuwa
Ng mag-anak na nagdiwang
Sa sabsaban n’ung unang Pasko
Sa pag-awit muli ng himig-Pasko
Nagliliyab sa paghahangad
Makapiling kayo sa gabi ng Pasko
Sa alaala’y magkasama tayo
The song was about a family celebrating Christmas together. I remember the moment when we were listening to that song, some of us were teary eyed, and some of us were crying. We were comforting one another. After that song, we wiped our tears and one of our second year brothers signaled the guitar player to play a familiar happy Christmas tune “Ang Pasko Ay Sumapit” and the mood started to change.
They took the bag that they hid behind the entrance door. Our second year brothers played the role of “Santa” and gave us presents for Christmas. It wasn’t big and expensive, some of them were things valuable to them, and some were “on sale” gifts from Sampol Market in Sapang Palay. After the gift giving we burst out laughing on their letters. And just when I thought the celebration had ended, our second year brothers rolled out carts filled with food– ham and cheese, bread, hot chocolate, bibingka, suman, puto-bumbong and bowls of fruit for our own Noche Buena.
It was only now, six years later, that I came to fully understand the magic and meaning of that Christmas Eve. This year, I will celebrate Christmas as an ordinary lay person. I left the seminary in April this year but the memory of that Christmas remains fresh in my memory. That night, we were taken back to Bethlehem in the time of Augustus as the Bible would say (Luke 2:8-12). We were like the shepherds that were guarding the flocks nearby. We were roused from our slumber when an angel of God appeared to us and the radiance of God’s glory surrounded us. They brought to us the good news that the Messiah, our Savior was born today. And the angels filled the heavenly hosts singing God’s glory.
What happened to us was perhaps the real meaning of Christmas– surprise, shock; astonishing, an unexplainable kindness and gladness. That night we received an unforgettable gift. A gift not as a reward for being good, but a gift that was totally unexpected and amazing because all of us knew we were not really worthy to receive it; but a gift purely given to the beloved because He loves us so much, such brimming kindness and generosity of the giver itself. And this is the Grace of Christmas. The Grace that our God has humbled Himself; set aside His power, His glory and became a baby so weak, small and fragile. He has done this for the single truth of our own existence, that we are loved. That every time we look at the baby lying in a manger, we can also see the reflection of ourselves: weak, small, humiliated and lonely. Because we are important to Him, He wanted to feel what we feel and understand us better.
God did not promise to take away all our problems, our trials, our pain, and our suffering in this world, but He promised to be with us in these times of problems, trials, pain and suffering. That is why He is called the “Emmanuel,” which means “God is with us.”
Yes, Christmas is about God’s unexpected kindness, and His gift to us… His very self.
As we celebrate this Christmas, let us remember the real spirit of this season. It is the unexpected gift of God and single truth that He wanted to show us: that we are loved. And hopefully this love would rouse us from deep slumber and awaken our capacity for goodness, generosity, kindness, patience, and forgiveness. — Rai Mendoza
posted by r a i m e n d o z a at 8:23 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home