One of my favourite Christmas stories is told by Pope St. John XXIII in 1958. He was giving his first Christmas homily soon after his election as pope. For the first time in the history of the church his homily was being broadcast over radio and television. He walked up to the microphone and asked,

“Who do you think represented us at the first Christmas?” He said, it wasn’t the angels, the shepherds, the wise men, and definitely not Joseph and Mary. To the surprise of all he said,

“It was the Donkey.” And he began to explain. The donkey was always feeling sorry for himself.

He always thought his life was boring and meaningless. He thought he was just a beast of burden. He always walked around with a long face, depressed as he was. Continuing with his walk, he looked up and saw a baby in a manger. There was something special about the baby- the look of the baby’s eyes captured his attention. So, he walked to the manger and sat down by the infant.

It was a cold wintry night and the baby was cold. No one likes to see any baby suffer. So, the donkey breathed heavily on the baby to keep him warm. The baby felt warm and comfortable. After a while the baby reached up and patted the muzzle of the donkey-as if to say: Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, for keeping me warm on this cold, wintry night. Now for the first time in his life the donkey felt happy. He found meaning and purpose in his life, and all his troubles went away.

And then the Pope said something that absolutely astounded the world. “For that’s the way it is with Almighty God. All he wants is the warm breath of a living soul. You give him that and he will take care of the rest.”

The whole world was overwhelmed. Stunned. There was utter silence for a long time.

When we celebrate yet another Christmas let us think of how we can make it meaningful, and what we can offer the Lord. Jesus is almost absent in most of our celebrations. He is forgotten and forsaken; he is cold and freezing.

We will have to wake up first. Let’s warm him up with our life breath. All that we have and all that we are belongs to God. Aren’t we all but a living breath, basically? Don’t we all agonize over a million existential questions? Well, we don’t have very many choices when we are face to face with the stark realities of life. Let us surrender; let us offer him the warm breath of our souls.

In T. S. Eliot’s “Journey of the Magi” he talks about the difficult and hazardous journey of the wise men. The Magi finally reach Bethlehem and see baby Jesus. As the poet describes, they were face to face with “birth and death.” He was perhaps telling his own story of conversion to the Anglican church. It’s our story too. Aren’t we all facing birth and death, in our physical and spiritual life? To be a Christian is to be born again in Christ, to be converted; it’s to let go, to give up, to die to self and the world. In our growing up is our dying too. We are all pilgrims, and as such, we go on facing the challenges; we journey through the roads less travelled. Let us meet Jesus at Bethlehem, a Jesus who was born to die. Let us ask ourselves: Where am I heading? What’s life all about?

Let us be on our way to Bethlehem and offer the Lord “the warm breath of a living soul”.

Image Courtesy : Sony Pictures