Christmas in Postmodern TimesBy Maximo Tumbali, Forum MemberPrior to postmodern or contemporary times, Christmas was celebrated in modest and simple ways that were almost devoid of pomposity and vociferous revelry.
People then were more predisposed to celebrating the season in solemn ways, not in profane, worldly activities where the real spirit or meaning of Christmas is lost.
IMAGE CREDIT: JANGARKI.WORDPRESS.COMTRADITIONAL PHILIPPINE "SIMBANG GABI" (CHRISTMAS DAWN MASS)
Life then was simple and people didn’t hanker that much after expensive things. They would rather spend the season thanking the Almighty for whatever blessings they had received.
During the entire season you would see them in church hearing masses. In far-flung areas at dawn, flocks or hordes of people would walk long distances by foot to hear the
Misa de Gallo or Midnight Mass.
A sense of piety was the hallmark of their celebration, with Christmas focused on the child Jesus. Love in the Christian sense was at its pinnacle, so to speak, as evidenced by simple gift-giving among the people in an atmosphere of peace, harmony, kindness, and friendliness. Christmas then was divine and humane.
But now in postmodern times Christmas has taken on a lowly, worldly image that’s almost pagan. It has thrown away the spiritual in favor of the material. Among businessmen, Christmas has become a source of big business. To materialists, it has become an occasion for splurging on mundane feasts.
IMAGE CREDIT: GETTY/HOLY FAMILY: UNSPLASHChristmas today is practically an all-out war against what is sacred and solemn. It has become a time for extravagance and debauchery. Taking the center stage now are material gifts rather than Jesus, our Savior, and without those material gifts Christmas has become dry and boring.
Amidst all the high-tech gadgets or contrivances we now have on hand, the traditional way of celebrating Yuletide has vanished—and so has our faith in the Almighty. Out of these material inventions we have formed or established new gods, so to speak.
With bravado we now shout to the world that we are capable of doing things even without the intercession of Divine Providence. Yet behind this bravado lurks helplessness or frustration in addressing our deep personal problems.
Hence, it’s not surprising today to hear morbid stories about people taking their own lives for their incapacity or failure to understand themselves and much less solve their problems.
This is what happens when we lose the center of our lives. Mundane pleasures instead of God characterize our notion of Yuletide in postmodern times. We believe more in the material than in the spiritual.
Gone are the days when people would rather talk about the stories of the child Jesus. Now what we hear are people harping on the success of their careers, on their savings and investments, on their newly acquired properties, on these sorts of things. For them God talk is corny, so why the hell should they spend a second or two listening to corny God talk?
IMAGE CREDIT: THEBUDGETTRAVELER.ORGFRENZY OF CHRISTMAS SHOPPING IN PHILIPPINE "TIANGGE"
In the postmodern era, Christmas has clearly been stripped or divested of its holiness and serenity. It has been taken over by the global spread of all forms of commercialism, boisterous merrymaking, immorality, and the like.
But in fairness to the few who still uphold the true spirit and meaning of Christmas, there’s a flicker of hope that through their influence, humanity will come again to its right senses and embrace once more the divine and less the material things in life.
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ONE AND ALL!
