Advent, the liturgical preparation to the Christmas season starts in less than a fortnight, but several government offices and private firms have decided to cancel or simplify Yuletide celebrations in view of the widespread suffering caused by supertyphoon Yolanda.
Personnel of the Philippine Navy last week began waiving their P90 daily meal allowance to raise funds for survivors of the monster storm.
This would be the prelude to a toned down Christmas celebration, said Col. Edgardo Arevalo, commander of the Navy’s Civil Military Operations Group.
In Central Visayas, the Department of Education and Bureau of Fire Protection are set to cancel Christmas parties.
City halls in Baguio and Makati as well as regional offices and public schools in Mindanao will also shun soirees in solidarity with Yolanda’s victims.
These acts, at the very least, strive to breathe life to the law that bids government officials and employees to observe austerity in times of great agony.
Firms like the Metropolitan Cebu Water District and the Visayan Electric Co are doing the same. Associations of priests as in the Cebu archdiocese chose to forego their parties.
Yolanda was unnecessary, but its aftermath urges us to return to the essence of Christmas.
The survivors, like pregnant Mary and Joseph seeking a place where she can give birth to Jesus Christ two millennia ago, need us not only to provide for them now but to create the conditions that would enable them to start over.
Channeling feast funds to buying food, clothing and personal necessities for the 3,000 refugees at hand or coming to Cebu, and for survivors in the hardest-hit locales echo the Magi’s gift-giving to the Christ-child.
Spend time, talent and treasure to donate or repack relief goods. Render voluntary medical services and psychological care for expectant mothers, newborns and children.
These are concrete ways of converting from being what Pope Francis calls self-referential to being all-embracing.
Carry on with a mundane Yuletide as if nothing happened and you will still find yourselves in the mold of a Christmas character: Herod, slaughterer of the innocents.
“I consider the cancellation of Christmas parties very laudable,” said Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma, outgoing head of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines.
“Whether or not we eat or drink, Christmas comes. What is important in celebrating Christmas is Jesus.”