All for one, one for all.

Merry Christmas everyone.

The last couple of days have been unusually introspective for me. Normally, the days leading up to Christmas would be filled with lots of distractions and social engagements. This year however, my only party invite seems to come from the Son of God.

Ok, maybe I’ve had a couple of people call me up but it’s hard to turn down a gig from Christ himself, especially since Jesus knows how to throw a really good buffet dinner after each mass. In this case, not only was there food for my tummy but nourishment for my soul.

You see, for the last three days I’ve been attending a Christmas triduum organized by the Opus Dei community here in Singapore. Interestingly, just to mention the words “Opus Dei” is to raise eyebrows among certain Catholics in this diocese, no less among clergy and religious. So you can imagine the lull in conversation when I sometimes extol the virtues of St Josemaria Escriva.

Equally vexing is to mention the benefits of an Indult Latin Mass and be instantly tagged as an incense-loving traditionalist obsessed with turning back the clock. On the other hand, I get death stares for saying I prefer the Novus Ordo mass to the old rite. And let’s not forget all those colorful complaints about crazy emotional Charismatics who can’t keep their hands by their sides.

Without any consideration for accuracy, most of these groups have been reduced to cruel caricatures of themselves. Yet despite being untrue, these labels stick. Why is that?

Sometimes I think it’s plain ignorance. Other times, it’s religious bigotry but mostly it comes down to pure convenience. It’s always easy to package our likes and dislikes under clear definitions and labels.

For instance, I’m in the midst of moving my office and the HR guys have provided me with handy cardboard boxes to dump my precious documents and belongings into. Thereafter, I simply mark the boxes with the right labels and off they go into storage.

How convenient!

Unfortunately, that’s how we deal with people and issues at times. We pack them, label them and stuff them away in neat little definitions that don’t require too much personal attention. And presto, our lives and outlook become a lot less complicated.

In this season of Christmas, we are called to recognize Christ in the humble incarnation of a baby shivering in a manger. But greater still is the invitation to recognize him in the human faces we behold everyday.

As Catholics, we must be careful not to demolish our Christian love for our own brothers and sisters by subscribing to cruel stereotypes that have nothing to do with truth nor charity.

The Pharisees questioned, “What good can come from Nazareth?” because in their self-righteousness, there was no room for any reality apart from their own.

Now we know that labeling and name-calling get us nowhere and only demean the great tenets of the Christian faith. And yet, it is so much easier to do just that, to reduce a living, breathing person to a cold, clinical definition; robbing him of his humanity and imbibing him with every abhorrence and repulsion we associate with that label. Because truth be told, it’s not easy to hate a human person whom we see as one like ourselves; with hopes, dreams, families, hurts and aspirations.

To look into the mirror of our own fragile humanity is to feel compassion for my brother and sister who is but an extension of me; connected as we are in the great fabric of life and eternal destiny.

But oh how easy it is to hate a term, a definition or an idea. Once we channel all our prejudices and assumptions under the banner of a label; a person suddenly becomes a lousy protestant, catholic, liberal, traditionalist, terrorist, anti-semite, dirty muslim…and so becomes despicably associated with an institution, symbol and persuasion, none of which recalls the flesh and blood humanity of the face we spit upon.

Thus when this world wishes to demean and persecute someone, they strip away the very appeal of his humanity to replace his face with a definition or classification, so that from henceforth, he would be known as an unfeeling idea rather than your brother in Christ.

Looking into his eyes, you can no longer see yourself, but only the antithesis of everything you hold dear.

Alas, it is much easier to hate a beast without a shred of humanity since between us, there is a chasm of infinity as wide as heaven is from hell, than it is to hate a fellow human being.

Perhaps that is one reason why gulags, concentration camps and slave traders waste no time in removing every shred of human dignity by replacing the identities of their charges with numbers, labels and false names. All at once, a child of God becomes as dignified as a wooden chair…just another something you term and use.

The U.S. has tragically lost so many young lives in the course of this war on terror. And yet, even before a single bullet was fired, the first casualty of war is always the truth.

There is not only the deformed vestiges of truth truncated by propaganda, but the violence of war also ravages the dignity of human communication, reducing it to a caricature of truth, convincing us with the typical lie during the Vietnam War; “that to save the village from the communist, it became necessary to destroy it.”…together with all its men, women and children.

Truth sets us free. It is lies and prejudices that perpetuate misunderstanding and hatred. And the solemn truth is, most people who feel an affinity for Opus Dei or the indult Tridentine Rite or any other group within the church are neither traditional, conservative nor liberal. They’re just faithful Catholics who want to live an authentic faith in obedience to the precepts of the Church; in the charism most suited to their spiritual growth.

We need to be reminded that these are our own brothers and sisters, not our enemies. The same blood of Christ run through our veins at every Communion, and it is a great injustice to the Body of Christ when we persecute our own.

All of us in one way or another unwittingly allow our values, prejudices and perceptions to influence our Catholic faith, when we should indeed be experiencing the opposite. This is particularly so if our faith remains not so much the witness of martyrs but the popular comfort of culture and tradition; which although beautiful, do not adorn our souls with real holiness.

(The sad irony in our diocese is that while we praise the great importance of ecumenism and religious tolerance for other faith communities, we have little charity or tolerance for our own Catholic diversity; particularly when that diversity is strongly orthodox in their fidelity to Rome)

To end this night’s reflection, let me share a wonderful story about our Christian links to one another.

During the second world war, an American soldier on his tour of duty in France came upon a tiny parish church where mass was about to be celebrated. Taking a break from his platoon nearby, he entered the small rustic church and observed that the celebrant priest was without a server.

Seeing as how he was an altar server in his youth, the grimy G.I. offered to assist the young priest. The good Father was ecstatic to receive the soldier’s assistance, and together (the priest in his vestments, the G.I. in his uniform) they celebrated the holy sacrifice with fervor and devotion.

Since the prayers and responses were in Latin in those days, neither had trouble understanding each other though the ritual. It was only when the mass was finished and both had retired to the sacristy that the American had the shock of his life.

Without any emotion, the young priest stripped off his vestments to reveal a German chaplain’s uniform beneath. He then turned to the surprised G.I. and embraced him warmly, thanking him for his kindness in serving his mass. In a parting gesture of peace, the German priest raised his hands in blessing over the young American soldier before slipping out the back door.

This is a story of two people clearly divided in their loyalties in a time of war and violence, and yet in the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, they recognized each other as brothers and were not ashamed to celebrate that eternal truth and love.

So let us pay heed to the apostle Paul who warned the Corinthians to avoid the partisan politics of saying “I am for Paul or I am for Apollos” when in truth, we are all for Christ.

This Christmas, let us look at each other through heaven’s eyes, for only then, can we see the Son of God made man in our brother and sister.

Thank you Jesus for Opus Dei, the Novus Ordo, the Tridentine, the Charismatics and for all the diverse gifts of the Holy Spirit in our Church.

And thank you Jesus for the shepherd’s pie this Christmas, it was simply divine.