It is so easy to become caught in the trap of considering some people as “winners” and others as “losers.” It has become such a common way of talking, even if it is meant only as a joke, that we hardly think of it anymore.
As president of Caritas Internationalis, the global federation of national Catholic charities, Cardinal Tagle of Manila released an Advent message in which he points out that as unwelcome migrants, the Holy Family had drawn the “loser” card. In Bethlehem Mary was “one pregnant woman too many” and later in Egypt, theirs was yet another unwanted “not from here” family.
And yet, this Child of humble origins would revolutionize how we consider the poor and the marginalized, the Cardinal pointed out. On our end, “It is how we live out our journeys and how we treat the people we meet that has the potential to transform our world.”
In his Sunday Angelus message for the Second Week of Advent, Pope Francis took up this same theme: he spoke of the preparation in our hearts which is necessary to be ready to receive Jesus at Christmas. He warned of the coldness and indifference which can infect us by closing us off to the needs of others.
We need to “open ourselves to others” just as Jesus did, the Pope urged, we need to pay attention to and not ignore our neighbors’ needs. We are not to remain distant or only interested in others, in a theoretical sense, but to meet and speak with them and find a way to be closer–one to another.
The goal of each of our liturgical seasons is conversion, a transformation which begins in the heart and draws us closer to Jesus. So whether it is migrants, the homeless, or our needy family members for whom “nothing is ever enough,” let us open up our hearts this Advent and Christmas seasons and wait for God to stretch us to receive more of his Son.
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Read more about Cardinal Tagle’s Advent message and his recent visit to a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh at: https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2018-12/ caritas-internationalis-tagle-advent-message-share-journey. html