Heaven is here

As in the past, the Yuletide survey taken by the Social Weather Stations Inc. showed a large number of Filipinos expecting Christmas to be a happy one this year.

The Fourth Quarter 2008 Social Weather Survey showed that 63 percent of adult Filipinos expected a happy Christmas, against only eight percent who said it would be “sad.”

SWS noted that the percentage has been steady since 2004, when the figure was 64. The percentage dropped to 62 in the next two years and returned to 64 last year.

But 64 was a big drop from 82 percent in 2002, and even from the 77 percent in 2003.

We don’t know if survey respondents have similar definitions of happiness. But if we go by holiday traditions in this country, a “happy” Christmas means freedom — or at least a break — from worry, quality time with loved ones, and for those who are so inclined, a time to rededicate one’s life to matters of the spirit.

Defining material happiness is easier: food on the table, even if it’s just bibingka and puto bumbong from the midnight Mass, and gifts exchanged among relatives and friends.

Surveys have rated Filipinos among the happiest people on the planet. Our closest rivals are possibly the people of Bhutan, where government policy is geared toward achieving a high “Gross National Happiness.”

Even amid the global gloom arising from what experts have described as the worst economic crisis to hit the world since the Great Depression, Filipinos find ways to be happy. Tonight families once again gather for the traditional noche Buena. The gatherings and feasts will continue throughout Christmas Day.

Sales might have slackened in some high-end shopping malls, but the night markets and regular tiangge are packed, and so are the bargain districts of Manila.

To spread comfort and joy amid gloomy forecasts of the year ahead, people are swapping uplifting articles and messages by email.

I am sharing with you one of my favorites, forwarded to me by our Lifestyle editor, Millet Martinez-Mananquil:

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Heaven is Here: Down is Up and Up is Down

By Horacio de la Costa, S.J.

Christmas is when we celebrate the unexpected; it is the festival of surprise.

This is the night when shepherds wake to the songs of angels; when the Earth has a star for a satellite; when wise men go on a fool’s errand, bringing gifts to a Prince they have not seen, in a country they do not know.

This is the night when one small donkey bears on its back the weight of the world’s desire, and an ox plays host to the Lord of heaven.

This is the night when we are told to seek our King, not in a palace but in a stable.

Although we have stood here, year after year, as our fathers before us, the wonder has not faded, nor will it ever fade; the wonder of that moment when we push open the little door, and enter, and entering find in the arms of a Mother, who is a Virgin, a Baby Who is a God.

Chesterton has said it for all of us: the only way to view Christmas properly is to stand on one’s head.

Was there ever a house more topsy-turvy than the House of Christmas, the cave where Christ was born?

For here, suddenly, in the very heart of Earth, is Heaven; down is up and up is down, the angels and the stars look down on God who made them and God looks up at the things He made.

There is no room in an inn for Him who made room, and to spare, for the Milky Way; and where God is homeless, all men are at home.

We were promised a Savior, but we never dreamed that God himself would come to save us.

We knew that He loved us, but we never dared to think that He loved us so much as to become like us.

But that is the way God gives. His gifts are never quite what we expect, but always something better than we hoped for.

We can only dream of things too good to be true; God has a habit of giving things too good to be false.

That is why our faith is a faith in the unexpected, a religion of surprise.

Now more than ever, living in times so troubled, facing a future so uncertain, we need such faith. We need it for ourselves, and we need it to give to others.

We must remind the world that if Christmas comes in the depth of winter, it is that there may be an Easter in the spring.

+Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam

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A merry Christmas to all!