A Light in Our Dark: A Christmas Reflection

Fr. Jijo Kandamkulathy CMF
Claretian Missionaries

Merry Christmas to all.
Tonight, we stop. We step out of the rush, away from the lists and the lights, and we listen. We listen for the echo of a song that once shattered the silent, ordinary night for a group of shepherds. The song was simple but overwhelming: “Good news! A Saviour is born—for everyone.” And then the promise: “Peace… to people of good will.”
That’s the heart of it. A Saviour. Peace.
But to feel the warmth of that news, we have to admit the cold we live in. We have to be honest about why we need saving. It’s not usually about dramatic evils. It’s about the prisons we build for ourselves, brick by brick, day by day.
Think of the walls we put up. We divide the world into “us” and “them.” Our team, their team. Our beliefs, their mistakes. We lock ourselves in rooms of anger, or pride, or fear, or narcissism, and we think the walls are there to protect us. But they just make us lonely. We get trapped in the tight, airless space of our own worries—about money, about what people think, about never having enough or being enough. In that world, I am the star, the director, and the only audience in the tiny drama of “Me.”
And the first casualty in that little prison is always others. We become selfish, not in a monster-like way, but in a quiet, tired way. I think of my own comfort first, my own time, my own needs, my ideas, my business, my parish. We walk right past people, not with hatred, but with a kind of blind indifference. That’s the shadow the Christmas Light comes to pierce.
Because the Saviour wasn’t born in a palace behind high walls. He was born in the open vulnerability of a stable, in the midst of the mess and the smell of life. God came into our prison. He lay down in the straw of our human condition—our loneliness, our struggles, our tendency to build walls. He came to say, “I am here, in this with you. And I will show you the way out.”
The way out is through the door of “the other.”
The angels sang of peace for “people of good will.” Good will isn’t just feeling nice. It’s an active turning. It’s a choice to turn your will, your intention, away from yourself and toward the neighbour – toward anyone in need. Redemption is that simple, dramatic shift: from thinking of myself to thinking for you. From caring for my problems to caring about yours. It is the courage to put someone else’s need before your own want.
And here is the beautiful, hidden secret of Christmas: This is where the joy is.
The pure, lasting joy of this season isn’t found in the presents you get. It’s kindled in the love you give. It’s the flame that sparks inside you when you truly see someone—a tired parent, a lonely neighbor, a difficult relative—and you reach out. Not because you have to, but because your heart has been softened by the memory of a helpless, generous God in a manger.
That intense, generous love is the salvation we’re offered. It saves us from our small, selfish selves. It breaks the locks on our psychological prisons. When you visit someone who is forgotten, when you forgive a wound you’ve carried, when you give without needing credit, you are stepping out of your dark cell and into the wide, star-lit fields of the shepherds. You are living the “good news.” You become part of the angel’s song.
So tonight, as you look at the crib, don’t just see a sweet scene from long ago. See a mirror. See a call.
What is the wall inside you that needs to come down? Is it a grudge you’re clinging to? A judgment you’ve made? A fear that keeps you from connecting? Offer that brick, that heavy, cold brick, to the Child in the straw. He came to receive it.
Then, look around. Who needs your peace? Who needs a moment of your “good will”? It might be with a phone call, a prayer, a helping hand, or simply a patient, listening ear.
May this Christmas not just be a day we celebrate, but a day that changes us. May the intense, generous love that came down from heaven reach out through our hands, our words, and our hearts. May we not just admire the Light, but become wicks for it, burning with a softer, warmer glow in the shadows of our world.
That is how the Saviour is born again. Not in Bethlehem, but in you. In me. In us.
A truly Merry, liberating, joyful Christmas to all.

© Claretian Publications, Macau
Cum Approbatione Ecclesiastica