{"id":9589,"date":"2011-12-12T01:01:42","date_gmt":"2011-12-12T05:01:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.cancaonova.com\/catholicismanew\/?p=9589"},"modified":"2011-12-10T08:09:03","modified_gmt":"2011-12-10T12:09:03","slug":"christmas-spirit-or-consumerism-in-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.cancaonova.com\/catholicismanew\/2011\/12\/12\/christmas-spirit-or-consumerism-in-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"Christmas Spirit or Consumerism in Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>We are accustomed to see Christmas only with an enchanting child who is smiling (or crying). And then the only motivation that can come is to return to true innocence of infancy. But this infancy many times is confused with a transference of feelings or situations confused and marked over our entire history. Or it may be in Christmas, we want many times to return to be children, in the attractive world of shopping and spending, where the fault or the guilt is always the famous “Christmas Spirit”.<\/p>\n

I always ask myself, who is this famous Christmas Spirit that always fills stores, malls, magazines? How can someone adventure to dive into a sea of people, for example, at the great centers of a city as Sao Paulo on 25 de Mar\u00e7o Street in the last hours before the Christmas Supper? “Really he is very kind, for always he gives presents for all and especially for us.” It is or is not true that motivated for the Christmas Spirit we want to remain more beautiful, better dressed, more fragrant, more cuddly, for we want to eat well and better…and so many other things, that make part of the world of children<\/p>\n

We return to the precipice of Bethlehem There many more that lack material things, the true Christmas Spirit is to become poor, in order that the poor may be rich. Not in this world, but heirs of the true treasure that does not pass: the Reign of Heaven. With this I am not saying that we cannot give ourselves a Christmas filled with beautiful things, but only invite to know more profoundly who is this Christmas Spirit.<\/p>\n

The first thing that I can say is that this Christmas Spirit is not in stores, it is not in festivals, it is not at dinner, it is not in new clothes, nor new shoes. then where is this Christmas spirit, that we may know?<\/p>\n

With certainty it is in the heart of each one that recognizes that Christmas only will be felt if one is filled primarily\u00a0with\u00a0\u00a0gratitude for a God who, loving the human person so much, makes himself one. The gratitude brings us to the second sense, sharing. The sharing not only is an exchange of presents done in the popular “secret friend”. But it is to knowing to present. Not what the other wants, but what the other needs. For example, have such persons at our side, at times in our own house, that needs, more than a pair of new shoes, would need a reconciling embrace. Of the feeling that brings us to share, is born a posture that of communion. Many times at Christmas we have more communion with the persons that are with us in the long giant lines of the great stores, than with The One that truly calls us to true communion, that no longer is what belongs to Another, and this we marvelously experience in the Christmas mass. This communion with God, invites communion with brothers. What is the meaning of having a mountain of cold present for others, in one is not capable of giving warmth my heart to brothers?<\/p>\n

With some of these tracks we can seek to know the true spirit of Christmas, that goes far beyond the consumerist call of Christmas. The Christian is called to be light for the people, showing in all that he does his true joy, Jesus the Incarnate Word of God.<\/p>\n

Fr. Anderson Mar\u00e7al<\/p>\n

Translated from Portuguese<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are accustomed to see Christmas only with an enchanting child who is smiling (or crying). And then the only motivation that can come is to return to true innocence of infancy. But this infancy many times is confused with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1121,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25555,25556],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cancaonova.com\/catholicismanew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9589"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cancaonova.com\/catholicismanew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cancaonova.com\/catholicismanew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cancaonova.com\/catholicismanew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1121"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cancaonova.com\/catholicismanew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9589"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cancaonova.com\/catholicismanew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9592,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cancaonova.com\/catholicismanew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9589\/revisions\/9592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cancaonova.com\/catholicismanew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cancaonova.com\/catholicismanew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cancaonova.com\/catholicismanew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}