A baby shower for Jesus on His day
Christmas Day, after this Sunday, will be just around the corner. What about a baby shower for Jesus? Let us prepare a table just beside the crib so Mother Mary can also see our gifts.
We would like to see a huge package labeled, “the gift of truth.” We have been fed lies, innuendos and doubletalk ever since the campaign period for last elections started. The lying has been so blatant that even those in high positions in the present government cannot dissociate truth from lies. Our congressmen and some senators have become apologists. They use every reason they can drum up to defend what cannot be defended.
We have been told by one senator that we shouldn’t wash our dirty linen outside of the Philippines. He forgot that foreign visitors do come to visit and even the young see through the cover-ups.
On the table beside the crib should be our 13th month pay for our employees including our domestic help. Let’s call it the “gift of generosity.” By the side of this gift, we should see the “gift of joy” even for strangers who are exploited by entrepreneurs. We have seen teenage boys hauling big stones in a small wooden cart for a budding contractor. The grime and dust mingled with their sweat presented such a dirty picture. These young boys will quickly grow to become men by force of circumstances. They are being paid P200 a day from which they buy their food and snacks. We can certainly be more humane.
We have been told that there is a penalty imposed by law if anyone hands out anything to those who knock at the windows of our cars. How can anyone refuse to give bread or food when we see hunger pangs plastered on the faces of our brothers? Some beggars immediately eat what we give.
The nicest gift we can bring to Jesus this Christmas day would be to prepare bundles of love, hope and care and place them next to the crib for our scheduled baby shower.
A big package labeled “prayers” for all the suffering Filipinos in our midst would also be a great gift.
Jesus came in swaddling clothes. How about clothing for the children who go about in tattered clothes? Slippers would also be fine for the barefoot children. Relocation is really a “gift of need” for the dwellers on sidewalks. There is really a need for a baby shower pleasing to Jesus.