BAGUIA
Thank you, Santo Niño.
More than anything, the Fiesta Señor, the solemnity of the Holy Child Jesus of Cebu, is a festival of thanksgiving.
Of course, we pilgrims come to the God who became a child with our supplications and the official prayers help us acquire a posture of adoration. But one who has experienced the friendship of the Lord cannot but come to meet him with a grateful heart. Our Lord’s whole life is a gift.
First came the gift of his conception in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. That conception dignifies the first moments of every human being’s existence. Human life, even at embryonic stage is enveloped in the divine One’s experience. It cannot but be held sacred.
Next came the gift of his development during the Virgin’s pregnancy. It was the grace that called forth the sublime motherhood of Mary and hat gave meaning to every well-intended act of renunciation in history. Long before He told his disciples that the journey to greatness went via the path of humble service, He in his pre-born human life showed how great a service is the assumption of vulnerability.
Why is becoming vulnerable a service? Does this not in effect turn my neighbor into caregivers for whom I would be a burden? But the Lord entered a state of helplessness not in order to be yet another task for us to make us step up to the call to love. For how can one behave as if one is under siege in the face of open need? How can one not love another who has not built walls around himself but is always an open door?
We approach the Holy Child Jesus with confidence. He has given us himself in his conception, in his mother’s womb, in his humble birth, in his childhood lost and found in our Father’s house, in his obedience to Joseph and Mary, in the silence of his hidden years.
He has given us the grace to take care of him as our Holy Child.
Surely He does not withhold from us every other gift that He, more than anyone else does, knows we need.
Thank you, Jesus, Señor Santo Niño. Viva! Pit Señor! Viva, Santo Niño!