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These last few years, I was graced to experience
Christmas in three different places: Vietnam, Philippines and Taiwan. Christmas
has only one message, one mystery being celebrated but he expressions of the
celebration differ and its impact to me also differ in nature and in intensity.
In Vietnam, Sr. Virginia and
myself were graced to experience part of the people’s celebration of Christmas
in the year 2002. Certainly every parish has its own traditional celebration,
particularly liturgical celebrations. This experience, however, is a diocesan
celebration of Christmas. It was a concert held at the major seminary of Nha
Trang participated by all the parishes that comprise the diocese.
Since Vietnam is a communist country, the church is required
to ask a permit from the government to hold a concert and other activities.
Granted the permission, the concert was made possible and it was grandiose one.
Every parish’ choir has its own Vietnamese attire as uniform in different
shades, different colors, different texture of cloth, etc.
All Christmas songs sung were
in Vietnamese and Vietnamese music has its particular beauty. At the conclusion
of this concert, the religious sisters dramatized the Incarnation story and
performed traditional Vietnamese dances. Vietnamese are quite serious people
(not so free and spontaneous to express emotions outwardly being under a rigid
regime), but such concert had been impressive. It gave me a lot of insight on
how faith is lived and celebrated in a climate where freedom is limited by
external forces, such as communism and lack of freedom.
In the Philippines, though
economically poor but characterized by an abundant freedom of expression,
Christmas is celebrated in varied forms which I guess only Filipinos do. In the
convent (DMC-Antipolo), our formation group together with the community went
caroling but what’s different in it was that the first families we visited were
mostly families of our own sisters and families that are very, very close to us.
It is meant simply t bring one message that “Jesus is born to us” and to wish
them a Merry Christmas.
Another activity which had left
much impact and meaning to all of us particularly to the young, PDDM formands is
the sharing of the “providence” to the people living nearby the Divine Master
Convent in Antipolo. Instead of letting people come to our ground, we went out
to reach out to them, sharing rice, noodles, toys, shoes, etc. People to whom we
reach out to, not knowing us, were hesitant and shy at first. Later, they were
telling us, “Sisters, sisters, thank you, thank you. Merry Christmas!” They were
very happy and we too were very happy for the experience.
In Taiwan, the same message of
Christmas is celebrated and transmitted also in a different way since the
catholic is a minority and December 25 is even a working day, not a holiday.
In general people don’t know
what Christmas is but the Church, of course, celebrates it. The major seminary
of Taiwan held a caroling at the Taipei Underground Train Station. To give the
people an idea of their identity, they sang Christmas carols in formal
attire(black Chinese cassock and white surplice made by the PDDM).
They danced and sang at he same time. Included in the
caroling are some narration about Christmas story and specific prayers for the
world, society, and, particularly for Taiwan.
To end the caroling, the
seminarians also invited the sisters present to join in singing some Christmas
carols. At first, I was hesitant to join and be part of the performing crowd but
the seminarians who frequent our Liturgical Center said, “Come on, this is
already free promotion of your Congregation. Go and join!” And joining was
indeed fun
This picture above
shows the sisters singing Christmas carols together with the seminarians as
background. This caroling was meant to announce the good news that Jesus is born
to people who do not know Him and who do not even know what Christmas is all
about.
Christmas has only one message,
but given different expressions to people and situations that differ from one
place to another. Experiencing these different expressions is truly very
enriching.
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