It’s Christmas too in Bozoum!

A child holding a small present (could be a whistle, a doll, a small car
or a ball, even a fake mobile phone) this is Christmas as well.

Last year Hyppolite had an accident during class…unfortunately he was
paralyzed waist down from the fall. Yet he keeps a smile on his face, even
if he suffers from a deep wound affecting his spine…. Finally today he was
baptized, along with a girl and another boy, Ulrich who suffers from Down
syndrome. 

This too, is Christmas! 

 Christmas is an afternoon spent with the orphans at the “Rainbow” Center;
with their nativity set made out of air-drying clay, blue elephants and
clothe trees….

Christmas is in the queue of the poor, waiting patiently for some food,
this day we managed to feed them some cookies and goodies, it’s Christmas
for them too

Christmas is in the nativity set, Christmas is in the twinkling lights
Christmas is in the wreaths made out of old newspaper scraps and some
Christmas blown glass ornaments.

Christmas is in the Panettone we made (even if it’s a little burnt!)

Christmas is in the song GLORIA IN EXCELSIS DEO that bursted out our
voices after the communion (a sumba, they say, in sango, the local
language)


It is yet another Christmas, and praise the Lord (it is really the right
thing to say!)
It is always! 

 The Child lying in the manger is truly God's Son. God is not eternal
Solitude but rather a circle of love and mutual self-giving. He is
Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

But there is more: in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, God himself, and God
rom God, became man. To him the Father says: "You are my son". God's
everlasting "today" has come down into the fleeting today of the world
And lifted our momentary today into God's eternal today. God is so great
That he can become small. God is so powerful that he can make himself
Vulnerable and come to us as a defenseless child, so that we can love
Him. God is so good that he can give up his divine splendor and come
Down to a stable, so that we might find him, so that his goodness might
touch us, give it to us and continue to work through us. This is
Christmas: "You are my son, this day I have begotten you". God has become
one of us, so that we can be with him and become like him. As a sign, he
chose the Child lying in the manger: this is how God is. This
Is how we come to know him? And on every child shines something of the
Splendor of that "today", of that closeness of God, which we ought to
Love and to which we must yield -- it shines on every child, even on
Those still unborn.