By PAUL MARINI Many Christians no longer have any idea what actually celebrated on December 24 night. The most extraordinary event in history has often been reduced to an excuse for family reunion or get well wishes to communicate each other gifts. Not to mention the merchandising and the insufferable "cocacolero" Santa Claus.
few years ago released a remake of a famous film of the decade of the '40s was called "Miracle on 34th Street." Both the first and the latest version of 1994 were very successful. Moreover, without too many trim corny, sentimental appealed to legitimate resources and the occasional tear might have escaped us see them. But ... what one would call attention is the falsification of the Christmas spirit that one can see in many of these family comedies. What should be the spirit? If we talk about the spirit of something, usually we like to refer to the essential, to the nub of something deeper. Some transform this event into a "day of solidarity" with the less fortunate. And this would not be bad as long as we clear the logic and last of this Christian festival.
What does "Christmas"?
One of the most obvious signs of strain that is experiencing Christmas in our secular societies are the cards that one receives. I'm sick of popcorn Picasso receive the cards by UNICEF, with its stylish designs "naive", displayed little children playing in a park! Christ and Christianity ... nothing. For its part, with Santa Claus (the current version is an invention of Coca-Cola in 1931) is not going much better: "Santa Claus can participate in the 'spirit of Christmas' without getting to religious or ethical dilemmas, less Moreover, let us be in contradiction with what we are or do during the rest the year. "(Rodriguez 1997:118).
And on top at Christmas we seem to be happy. Alegres "why, why? And the answers could be many, but what should be the real reason? Why do we end the year?, Why is the time for assessment?, Why we side with the whole family, even after having fulfilled a religious ceremony?, Why the gifts?, Why we brought forth mutually good feelings? We know that the Christmas spirit can not consist or gifts, or decorations, or tree, or even build a manger. We also maintain that most people know that these should not be the reason for our joy, but we know that most do not know the real reason. Someone more clever you can even say: "We celebrate the birth of Baby Jesus and the arrival of salvation to the world." The problem is that I have all the feeling that very few people know what has come to save us. In fact at the University of Salvador there are students who ask me: "Savior of what." In fact many do not know well what the word "Christmas." Very few would know answer "Christmas" in English means "birth of life" and its Latin declension "Nativity" could be translated as "birth of life for you." What life is speaking here? Of a new life, a promise of eternal salvation, because our life now, yes, with Christ, may settle into the well. Because Jesus (which literally means "God saves") comes to save us from a terrible situation of sin, the result of a mysterious absence in the beginning of time. It is free of the more lucid thinkers have been characterized as the "human condition": a wounded nature and damaged in their most intimate structures, weakened in their resistance to evil. It is an objective impotence, an inability structural, a bondage which man can not free itself, and therefore can not itself be kept in the well without falling eventually. Unless, of course, that ... God comes to save us. Unless God empowers us for good. This is what theologians have called the name of grace. A supernatural force is not of this world and enables us to good and to stay there.
The real joy.
So this is the real reason for our joy. For those who were born enemies of God, we can return to friendship with him because we are sick, we can be healed, because we were born slaves can be freed because the subject to death, we rise with him. For this we have to be happy at Christmas. For God has not abandoned us to our death and misery. Because God has entered human history in the most outrageous. Because it is a cynical and cold observer. We are not part of a cosmic experiment, small ants controlled by an abandonment and inhumane divinity. On the contrary, Christianity is the most brutal confirmation of God's love for his human creature. This must be why our deepest and truest joy.
How Hollywood misrepresents things.
And the new version of "Miracle on the street 34 "what to do with it? Everything and nothing. All it seeks to speak of the "holiday spirit" and that is because it has nothing to do with what we have thought. Starting with the absolute lack of mention of Christ and the Christian (just a vague and confusing references to "the Church") and ending with the most important dialogue between Santa and one of the main characters, Mrs. Walker, culminating in this sentence totally contrary to the true Christmas spirit. Speaking of himself, "Santa Claus" tells: "I am a symbol of the human capacity to suppress selfishness and hostile tendencies which control most part of our lives. " Nothing more wrong. There is no such human capacity. There is no such ability to save us from ourselves. If the Gospel means "Good News", "Good News" is because previously there's bad news. And this is that man can not escape the human condition and his own misery. All totalitarian and naturalists have tried and failed miserably. Self-Man's reaction today against true Christian spirit of Christmas is like that of an athletic young man of 20 years to be told: "We'll give you a heart transplant! But you have to make you now. " His eyes, a mixture of awe and terror, we speak of its total rejection. Modern man thinks he can heal or simply considered healthy. "No Child God has come to be cured of anything. In any case for that I have to psychoanalysis or the new age. " So, perhaps, have forgotten or ignored the true meaning of this event, many are surprised sad being found themselves at Christmas. And do not understand what happens to them.
Magazine "Tigris"
few years ago released a remake of a famous film of the decade of the '40s was called "Miracle on 34th Street." Both the first and the latest version of 1994 were very successful. Moreover, without too many trim corny, sentimental appealed to legitimate resources and the occasional tear might have escaped us see them. But ... what one would call attention is the falsification of the Christmas spirit that one can see in many of these family comedies. What should be the spirit? If we talk about the spirit of something, usually we like to refer to the essential, to the nub of something deeper. Some transform this event into a "day of solidarity" with the less fortunate. And this would not be bad as long as we clear the logic and last of this Christian festival.
What does "Christmas"?
One of the most obvious signs of strain that is experiencing Christmas in our secular societies are the cards that one receives. I'm sick of popcorn Picasso receive the cards by UNICEF, with its stylish designs "naive", displayed little children playing in a park! Christ and Christianity ... nothing. For its part, with Santa Claus (the current version is an invention of Coca-Cola in 1931) is not going much better: "Santa Claus can participate in the 'spirit of Christmas' without getting to religious or ethical dilemmas, less Moreover, let us be in contradiction with what we are or do during the rest the year. "(Rodriguez 1997:118).
And on top at Christmas we seem to be happy. Alegres "why, why? And the answers could be many, but what should be the real reason? Why do we end the year?, Why is the time for assessment?, Why we side with the whole family, even after having fulfilled a religious ceremony?, Why the gifts?, Why we brought forth mutually good feelings? We know that the Christmas spirit can not consist or gifts, or decorations, or tree, or even build a manger. We also maintain that most people know that these should not be the reason for our joy, but we know that most do not know the real reason. Someone more clever you can even say: "We celebrate the birth of Baby Jesus and the arrival of salvation to the world." The problem is that I have all the feeling that very few people know what has come to save us. In fact at the University of Salvador there are students who ask me: "Savior of what." In fact many do not know well what the word "Christmas." Very few would know answer "Christmas" in English means "birth of life" and its Latin declension "Nativity" could be translated as "birth of life for you." What life is speaking here? Of a new life, a promise of eternal salvation, because our life now, yes, with Christ, may settle into the well. Because Jesus (which literally means "God saves") comes to save us from a terrible situation of sin, the result of a mysterious absence in the beginning of time. It is free of the more lucid thinkers have been characterized as the "human condition": a wounded nature and damaged in their most intimate structures, weakened in their resistance to evil. It is an objective impotence, an inability structural, a bondage which man can not free itself, and therefore can not itself be kept in the well without falling eventually. Unless, of course, that ... God comes to save us. Unless God empowers us for good. This is what theologians have called the name of grace. A supernatural force is not of this world and enables us to good and to stay there.
The real joy.
So this is the real reason for our joy. For those who were born enemies of God, we can return to friendship with him because we are sick, we can be healed, because we were born slaves can be freed because the subject to death, we rise with him. For this we have to be happy at Christmas. For God has not abandoned us to our death and misery. Because God has entered human history in the most outrageous. Because it is a cynical and cold observer. We are not part of a cosmic experiment, small ants controlled by an abandonment and inhumane divinity. On the contrary, Christianity is the most brutal confirmation of God's love for his human creature. This must be why our deepest and truest joy.
How Hollywood misrepresents things.
And the new version of "Miracle on the street 34 "what to do with it? Everything and nothing. All it seeks to speak of the "holiday spirit" and that is because it has nothing to do with what we have thought. Starting with the absolute lack of mention of Christ and the Christian (just a vague and confusing references to "the Church") and ending with the most important dialogue between Santa and one of the main characters, Mrs. Walker, culminating in this sentence totally contrary to the true Christmas spirit. Speaking of himself, "Santa Claus" tells: "I am a symbol of the human capacity to suppress selfishness and hostile tendencies which control most part of our lives. " Nothing more wrong. There is no such human capacity. There is no such ability to save us from ourselves. If the Gospel means "Good News", "Good News" is because previously there's bad news. And this is that man can not escape the human condition and his own misery. All totalitarian and naturalists have tried and failed miserably. Self-Man's reaction today against true Christian spirit of Christmas is like that of an athletic young man of 20 years to be told: "We'll give you a heart transplant! But you have to make you now. " His eyes, a mixture of awe and terror, we speak of its total rejection. Modern man thinks he can heal or simply considered healthy. "No Child God has come to be cured of anything. In any case for that I have to psychoanalysis or the new age. " So, perhaps, have forgotten or ignored the true meaning of this event, many are surprised sad being found themselves at Christmas. And do not understand what happens to them.
Magazine "Tigris"
0 comments:
Post a Comment