Some years ago, on Christmas morning, I met an old woman in an Internally Displaced Peoples (IDP) camp in Myanmar. This is her story. Three times in her life she was forced to flee for survival.
Firstly, during World War II, when she was just a couple of months old, her parents had to flee with other villagers from Japanese soldiers. They spent a night hiding in a swamp watching their village burn. When she would cry, her parents were terrified that her cries would lead the soldiers to where they and the other villagers were hiding.
Then, as a young married woman, she had to flee again, this time with her young children, deep into the jungle. Her husband had already been killed as civil war raged. She suffered greatly during those years. She told me, “Here I am in my 80s in this IDP camp.
Once again, I have lost everything as my whole village was burnt to the ground. We fled our homes without taking anything.”
I wondered what was going on inside her – perhaps a sense of powerlessness and hopelessness. I asked myself, “What does Christmas mean for her?” Similarly, every day we learn from the media and newspapers, about the migration of people fighting for their lives and survival due to conflict, war and the global climate crisis.
Countless migrants arrive by various unsafe means — trucks, airlines, ships and boats — with many lives being lost while crossing the seas around our world. Moreover, the human tragedy is that the arrival of migrants is often unwelcome despite their vulnerability, insecurity, and trauma.
They frequently face rejection and discrimination and their dignity as human beings is often not recognised or respected. In light of this I wonder, “What does the Christmas message tell us?”
“Now it happened that, while they were there, the time came for her to have her child, and she gave birth to a son, her first-born. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.” (Luke 2: 6-7)
In the same way, those who receive and welcome migrants are often disturbed, discomfited and challenged by their differences, their unfamiliar language, culture, values and lifestyles.
Yet, the courage to reach out – with openness, hospitality, and acceptance – uncovers feelings of tenderness, compassion and solidarity that nurture, enrich and expand the beauty and sacredness of humanity.
In our fast-changing world — full of complexity, diversity, competitiveness, confusion and busyness — the mystery of Christmas calls each of us into silence and solitude to welcome Jesus, newly born into the manger of our own inmost souls.
It is here we can be healed in the presence of the Prince of Peace and hear in our inmost hearts, “he or she who welcomes you welcomes me” (Matt 10:40-42). And so hope and love are born again among us. Again, I am challenged to ask, “What does the Christmas message mean to me personally today?”
Sr Susanna Choi
Published in the December 2024 issue of the Far East magazine. Please subscribe here and support Columban Missionaries.
