FEAST OF THE SANTO NIÑO
PROPER FEAST IN THE PHILIPPINES
(THIRD SUNDAY IN JANUARY)
The beginning of Christianity in the Philippines is connected with the image of the Sto. Niño. The story has it that Ferdinand Magellan, the discoverer of Cebu in April 1521 gave a statuette of the Santo Niño the native Queen Juana as her baptismal gift at the mass baptism of natives, led by King Humabon. Slowly the image got a chapel, then a church, which in 1965 became the Basilica Minore del Santo Niño in Cebu. On the third Sunday in January each year the fiesta of the Señor Santo Niño is celebrated, which in the course of the years was extended to a Feast Proper for the Philippines.
The first and second readings are the same in the years A, B, and C. only the gospel is different. This year it is Luke. The first two readings have been explained in Cycle A and B, the gospel we saw on the Feast of Holy Family. Thus here follows only a summary.
The liturgy of today tells us: A Son is given to us (first reading), a child and yet the king of peace and almighty God. God has blessed us with all spiritual blessings from heaven in Jesus (second reading). He is obedient to his parents, and yet he is the Son of the Father who does his will and stays in the Temple (gospel).
First Reading: Isaiah 9:1-6
This is the same reading as in the first Mass at Christmas, which we saw in Cycle A. When the Northern Kingdom of Israel slowly was transformed into Assyrian territory during the time of Tiglath-pileser III in 734 and 732, Isaiah awakened hope of his people by an oracle of salvation (Is 8:23-9:6): (1) There will come a change for the better in the future (8:23). (2) People will walk in light again (9:1-2). (3) A kingdom of peace shall be inaugurated (9:3-4). (4) The savior king will be enthroned (9:5). He will be (a) Wonder-Counselor, (b) God-Hero (Mighty God), (c) Father-Forever, (d) Prince-of-Peace. (5) The new king will rule as a second David.
Today's liturgy stresses the aspect that Christ, although being God-Almighty and king of peace became a little child.
Second Reading: Ephesians 1:3-6.15-18
The Apostle opens his doctrinal part (Eph 1:3-3:21) where he speaks about the mystery of the recapitulation of Jews and Gentiles in Christ by telling us that this mystery to make all men members of God's family was conceived by God from all eternity (Eph 1:3-14). That means in particular: (1) We are chosen, all of us not only the Jews. God's choice is always bountiful: he blesses us with every blessing anybody could look for. The purpose of his choice is to make us holy and blameless, to set us apart, to make us different (Eph 1:3-4). (2) In concrete. God's plan consists in making us adopted sons (1:5-6). (3) The Apostle thanks God for the faith of his readers and asks him to give them wisdom and insight in God's plan. A Christian must have an enlightened faith; unreflected religion has little worth.
As we saw on the Feast of the Holy Family, here Christ is presented to us as the one completely different from his parents: With twelve years he is for all practical purposes of age. And the Father lays his hands on him. Thus Jesus must be in his Father's house, he must do the Father’s will. And in that sense the bonds connecting him with his foster-father Joseph and his mother Mary recede into the background. But that comes so suddenly that even Mary does not understand her own son.
On the other hand, he goes back with them to Nazareth and is subject to them for many more years; as a matter of fact, for almost all of his life, since his public career lasted only one to three years. Seen in the context of today's feast we would stress the aspect: Although Jesus is the Son of God the Father, he humiliated himself and was subject to his parents.
HOMILY
BECOMING LITTLE AS A CHILD
A. In order to understand why we worship Christ as a little child we have to away two wrong notions:
1. First,
it is said that to Filipinos the historical grownup Christ is unknown and thus
also their spirituality has not fully matured. Thus they venerate the “Santo
Niño" or the "Santo Entiero” (Christ interred). The great formative
and decisive years of Jesus’ life, the years between his helpless infancy and
his virile resolution to die in order that
others may live, is strangely passed over. The miracle-working Infant seems
never to grow to real manhood. But the Christ Child could be important to us
only if we see him announcing good news to the poor, calling laborers to his
side, when we see him laying down his life to set others free. Two who put the
argument this way are Douglas Elwood and Patricia Ling Magdamo in their book Christ
in the Philippine Context (Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 1971), p. 5-6.
Whatever the merit of this statement might be, the fact is (as studies have shown as one at the University of San Carlos in Cebu in 1973) that for most students and thus educated grownups Christ as friend, the grownup Christ, is the predominant figure.
2. Another wrong notion came up (at least for some) ever since St. Therese of Lisieux recommended her "Little Way": we want to be like children before God; and many equated child with innocence: Children are innocent; we shall become as innocent as children before God. Are children that innocent so that one can equate child with innocence? A grammar teacher once was hoarse and could hardly talk. Thus before class he appealed to the kindness of the children telling them: "Children, I can hardly speak today. So please keep quite so that you can understand me." The result was the opposite of what the teacher had expected: The children made such a noise that one could not understand anything and the teacher had to drop the class. The insight of the teacher was: Children are as good and bad as grownups; they are just grownups in the beginning stage.
B. 1. When
Jesus said: "Unless you become like children you
will not enter the kingdom of heaven" (Mt 18:3) the point of comparison
was not so much the innocence of children, but rather the insignificance.
Children did not have to say anything in public in the time of Christ. Only
grownups counted. In our own opinion and estimation we must therefore be as
insignificant as children were held in public
in the time of Jesus.
2. In the Old Testament we have the same picture: For the Priestly author (P) in Gen 5 the patriarchs are most venerable because we all descend from them. Consequently the author gives them all a long age, most of them are nine hundred years or so, not thousand that would be perfect. Only old people are venerable, because they have experience; young people do not count. The patriarchs therefore cannot have died young. But Jesus tells us: In your own eyes you most consider yourselves as insignificant as children are held among us.
3. This is what Jesus did himself: He humbled himself and became a little child. In that sense and in the context of today, the Feast of the Santo Niño, we can read the famous pre-Pauline Christological hymn of Phil 2:6-7:
“Though he was in the form of God. He did not deem equality with God something to be grasped at. Rather, he emptied himself and took the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of men, becoming a small boy as we. But because of his humiliation God exalted him after his greatest humiliation on the cross and made him Lord.”
4. This is what Catholics like Sta. Therese of Avila and others at the time of the discovery of the Philippines wanted to stress: Great are not the kings and rulers of our time if they glory in their power, or even if they lord it over people (cf Mt 20:25), but rather the one who humbles himself as the Lord did. Great is the man who is as a little child. Thus to worship Christ as Santo Niño rightly done does not keep us away from maturing. To be like a child is not something physical but something moral, something that takes us all our life to learn.
5. Are we opened or are we conceited? Do we do things because we fear somebody might get to know us? Do we want to appear witty to cover our emptiness? Are we boisterous because we want that people take us more intelligent than we are? Do we put up a front nobody shall see behind?
Children usually give themselves the way they are. They do not have all the prejudices of the grownups. Children of different races play together and feel at home everywhere. Only grownups put up walls of segregation between black and white. Grownups feel easily intruded on when visitors come. Children are more outgoing.
6. Connected with this openness is the admission of our limitations and dependency. Children know that all they are and have they owe their parents. And they readily admit it. They do not have to make a special effort.
Grownups often try to act as if they could do everything themselves; they fear they would lose something admitting their own limitations. Or if they admit a shortcoming and some limitations they do it in order to be recognized for humility or in the hope that somebody would say: “Oh no, you are much more intelligent and capable than you try to admit.”
And yet, as creatures we are limited and the admission of it is the starting point of every prayer, of any religious act. God can fill us with his grace only if we show our barrenness.
7. Children naturally expect and accept help from their parents. They are dependent. It is true we should try to stand on our feet, we should not ask others to help us do things we can do ourselves. An old proverb has it: “Help yourself then God helps you!" When somebody because of an accident lost his right arm and the doctor made the last stitches of the operation afterwards, he said: "Let nobody in your life ever help you.” What the doctor meant was: "Do not pity yourself! Do yourself, what you can do yourself! Otherwise you will not be happy.”
But this does not mean that we should not accept help from others. We should be humble as children to accept help. To accept help, to accept gifts from somebody is often the finest gift we can make somebody. Lastly we cannot make any gift to God but only accept his gift with a grateful and open heart.
Somebody who accepts help from others can accomplish much more in his life than he could ever do alone.
8. Children relatively easily keep in dialogue with their parents. They tell them everything they experience during the day. They talk about their plans and dreams, their wishes and hopes, which they formulate in requests and which they clothe in thanks in case they received something from their parents.
Prayer is the name for such dialogue with God. A childlike person prays, talking to God about everything he encounters during the day: joys and sorrows, accomplishments and disappointments, plans and hopes; he prays for help in difficulties, thanks the Lord for all the wonders he showers on him every day, and asks for forgiveness for all the wrongs he does. The last, asking forgiveness admitting that we have done something wrong is probably also easier for a child to admit than for a grownup person.
9. And there we are at the last quality of a child: It's trust. A little stubborn or mischievous as it might be at times, in the long run it will trust its parents.
We are like children if we trust in God who is our Father. The first what is reported of the young Jesus as we see in the gospel of today is that he trusted in God his Father and wanted to be in his house. Trust is one of the finest qualities in personal relations.