How far are you willing to go?

Away in a manger, no crib for a bed,

The little Lord Jesus laid down his sweet head The stars in the night sky looked down where he lay,
The little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay.

When we hear this song, it is quite easy to imagine a starlit scene of a baby peacefully sleeping, nestled on soft golden hay. But let us scratch beneath the romance on the surface and find a deeper reality. Hay is itchy and prickly. A manger, the trough where cows feed, is wet and sticky. Add to that the goo a newborn infant is usually covered in. And we have not yet even considered the smell. Who would want to be born in a stable? The stars in the night sky – if they could talk – would probably whisper, “Why would you give up the comfort of heaven for the suffering on earth?”

We may have taken away the romance, but I think we have revealed something more. God being laid in a manger tells us just how far God is willing to go to show how much he loves us.

The cattle are lowing, the baby awakes, But little Lord Jesus no crying he makes. I love You, Lord Jesus, look down from the sky
And stay by my side ‘til morning is nigh.

I am not sure if the infant Jesus really did not cry. That does not sound like a real baby to me. But what I am sure of is that the adult Jesus did not complain. When he taught in the desert, he did not grumble about the sand and the heat. When he healed lepers, he was not finicky about touching their skin. When he was on the cross, it was not the agony that was foremost in his mind; it was “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” Jesus had a dream for us to enter the Kingdom of God, and for that he dared to face all the painful details.

A few months after I entered the Society of Jesus, I was sent to help out in our mission parishes in the mountains of Bukidnon. I had been able to say yes to the big things: “Yes, Lord, I will give my life for your people. Yes, Lord, take all my liberty, my will, my mind, and my memory. All things I hold and all I own are yours, Lord.” But the small things tripped me up: living without electricity and cold soft drinks, having to wash my clothes in a river and never getting them clean enough, and eating beans for breakfast, lunch, and dinner (it was almost a good thing that we did not have merienda). I once asked the Jesuit priest assigned to serve the indigenous people there how he could bear to live so far away from civilization. He said it was because he had fallen in love with the people. I, on the other hand, never saw them. I could see only as far as the lack of electric lights and my hanging laundry would let me. But that pastor, with his arthritic legs made worse by the cold and the many miles he had to travel on foot, is a good reminder of how far God is willing to go because of his love for us.

A week ago, sad news about a couple I have long admired reached me. After a long illness, the wife of a teacher in my grade school passed away. The first time I saw them is still etched in my mind – the husband pushing his wife’s wheelchair, attending to her needs with such patience and gentleness. I remember thinking, “Wow, talk about living out your marriage vows in sickness and in health.” I assumed that the couple had gotten married, and then maybe the woman got into an accident or got sick, and she ended up confined to her wheelchair. I had no idea that the lady was already in a wheelchair even before there was any formal commitment between her and the man. So why did the man still court her, still propose to her, and still marry her? Did he not foresee that this path would be harder for him? Did he not take into account all the disadvantages of choosing this woman to be his lifelong partner?

The trite thing to say would be, “He married her in spite of her disability.” But this is not their story. I heard the man once share that his wife’s being in a wheelchair was part of her. Giving his yes to her meant saying yes to the wheelchair also. This was not just something he had to endure. This was something he chose to embrace. The love of a man and a woman in marriage is supposed to remind us of the love God has for humanity. How far this husband was willing to go for his wife is a great image of how far God is also willing to go for us – saying yes to all of us, our strengths and our wonderful potentials, our weaknesses and our shameful realities. God knew what he was getting into, but instead of running away, he plunged into our muck. For God, looking down from the sky is not enough, he wants to walk beside us even if it means pushing our wheelchairs through our sin and our sod.

Christmas is when God shows us how far he is willing to go to show his love for us. And as far away as the manger is from his heavenly throne, on the cross he goes even farther. How far are we willing to go for him?

Today, we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family. The members of our family are, in one sense, the people closest to us. They have known us longest. They were there when we took our first steps and when we first fell. We cannot really hide anything from them. At the same time, the members of our family can also be the people farthest from us. In front of our friends, we show our best selves. Our families must contend with the leftovers – the grumpy, grouchy Grinches that come out when we change into our pambahay (or house clothes). We shower complete strangers with compliments; our family members get our complaints in torrents. We take our families for granted; many times we do not even try.

Today, as we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family, maybe it is to them that we can demonstrate how far we are willing to go for God. Even if a rift is not our fault, maybe we can swallow our pride and take the first step to patch things up. Even if we have been rebuffed many times, maybe we can keep on trying to reach out. Or maybe, even in small things, we can try just a bit harder.

In the Church’s wisdom, our feast today celebrates the Holy Family, not the Perfect Family (even if Jesus, Mary, and Joseph probably were). If we aspire to be a perfect family, we will only be disappointed. I have never met a perfect family. But I have come to know many holy families – families who, in their imperfection, still try to be holy by going the extra mile for each other, even if this extra mile is fraught with missteps and U-turns.

We end with the song with which we began (albeit with some modifications). And this time, we include our families in our prayer:

Be near us, Lord Jesus, we ask you to stay Close by us forever, and love us, we pray (for we cannot go far without you, Jesus) Bless all the dear families in your tender care,

(May our families be a glimpse of heaven) for where there is love, you, Lord, are there.