Let’s always be welcoming to Christ

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

THE days before Christmas usually see us frenziedly preparing for the birth of Christ. It’s a natural behavior for someone who is very special to all of us. After all, Christ is God who makes himself man to save us, to recover us from our state of alienation from God who gave us the dignity of making us like him, sharers of his life and nature.

This welcoming behavior should not be limited only during the Advent and Christmas seasons. It should be for the whole time, every day and every moment of our life, in fact. It is what is proper for us to do, otherwise we cannot escape the possibility of again being separated from God.

This should be the attitude to have in our relation with Christ. He always takes the initiative to come to us, to knock at our heart’s door. We should be welcoming to him, and more than that, we should be appreciative of his love and concern for us and learn to correspond by knowing, thanking and loving him better each day.

Toward this end, we may just need a few moments to touch base with this reality and to make it our guiding spirit all throughout the day. We have to feel this need for him, for without him, we can only do nothing, or worse, the only possibility left for us is to sin.

Christ spelled out this innate need for him when he said: “I am the vine and you are the branches. The one who remains in me, and I in him will bear much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers. Such branches are gathered up, thrown into the fire and burned…” (Jn 15,5-6)

Thus, we have to learn the art of praying, or spending a few moments of meditation, which is not only a matter of a technique but more, that of learning how to be with Christ. A few minutes of meditation is like the refueling and the recharging that we need to make us going properly throughout the day.

Remember that God first created us. And upon our creation, he took the initiative to establish a personal relationship with us. He talked to our first parents, gave them some instructions. And even if our first parents, and then us, messed up the original plan of God, he did not sever that relationship with us.

Yes, there was and will be divine anger and punishment because of our sins, but he will never abandon us, unless we dare to abandon him. But it is his love for us, shown most especially in his gratuitous mercy he offers to us, that would contain all the aberrations we tend to commit.

Let us foster the desire for Christ to come into our hearts. We have to remember that as St. Augustine said, “The entire life of a good Christian is in fact an exercise of holy desire.”

He said that since we don’t see heaven now and yet we long for it, we need to keep on desiring it to prepare ourselves for it.  That desire not only has to be maintained. It also has to increase as time passes. The time of our life, the time of waiting to see our ultimate end, God, is a time to cultivate our holy desire to the max.

This is how we can always be welcoming to Christ!

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com