Jesus is Christmas
Annunciation (Fra Angelico)
By Francisco Almagro Dominguez
On one occasion, some young people approached the Santa Rita de Casia parish in Havana, inquiring about the Church and the faithful. With the usual paranoia in which the marches of the Damas de Blanco took place every Sunday and the dastardly harassment of those who lent themselves to the "acts of repudiation," someone advised the priest not to agree to meet with the young people. They could be provocative. Or informants taking their first steps in the detestable world of free snitching. One understands the suspicions after having lived for a few years outside of that socio-political monstrosity where a father, a brother, or a husband can be the informer. Lying, keeping quiet, and simulating are weapons to survive in the suffocating world that is Cuba.
However, with his usual patience, the priest said it was no problem, and that they should be invited to a conversation. I would not tell them about the Church or those who came to it. "I'm just going to tell they about who Jesus Christ is," he concluded. I remember that phrase throughout Christmas because I also owe the priest the idea that the first thing to be a Christian is to "fall in love" with Jesus, to love Jesus Christ. But how can you admire someone you don't know?
With the justification of the state and secular education on the one hand, and so-called political correctness on the other, there is hardly any talk of the figure that governs the calendar and a substantial part of our culture. It is not a question of religious proselytism. However, a course in the history of religions is necessary for those in higher grades. You don't have to "convert" anyone, or profess a specific creed to climb the social ladder as happens in theocracies or communist societies – in the end, very similar.
However, we could not call ourselves moderately cultured if we do not know two thousand years of art, science, economics, and history, in which the figure of Jesus Christ has been the center. And here I tell another anecdote. A group of plastic artists was studying the masters of the Renaissance and, captivated by Fran Angelico's The Annunciation; they asked the professor what "that advertisement" was about. The professor recommended they visit a priest; He could only explain the "non-religious" part of the picture.
Unfortunately, anti-Christianity is not limited to totalitarian countries, where men, by the work and grace of terror and indoctrination, have become gods, modern pharaohs, infallible kings, and unburied commanders. The first missile against the Faith came from incipient capitalism. The bourgeoisie and their philosophers, and their political commissars – there were already some – had to suppress all teaching where men were neighbors, brothers, and sisters who had to be loved as they loved themselves. A God who would "judge" them for the abuse of children and working women was not convenient.
That "erasing" of God, Jesus, from history was particularly cruel during the Conquest. The so-called Indians were not human beings because, according to certain philosophers, they lacked a soul; the "Christian task" was to give them back their spirit as any animal is trained, according to the Catholic priest and ideologue Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda. Contrary to the thesis justifying so much evil, the Dominican Francisco de Victoria – whom Father Bartolomé de las Casas followed – attributes the "human soul" of the natives, and therefore, deserving of consideration and mercy.
It is a curious epitome in the history of Christianity. In the face of the abuse, enrichment, and corruption of a part of the clergy, there will be men and women who are called Fray San Martin de Porres – the first black Latin American saint – and Saint Teresa of Calcutta. Pope Paul V said that for him, the constancy of the divinity of the Catholic Church was that for two millennia, those who had done it the most damage were its members, and yet it was still standing.
It is logical that the historical figure of Jesus Christ – a malicious intention has been to deny his historicity when there are several sources that attest to it – does not arouse much sympathy and admiration. He was born in the filthiest place, surrounded by animals, and grew up in a miserable village in Judea – under Roman rule – by profession, a carpenter, he was not known to have a wife or children, and after preaching for a couple of years, he died as a criminal by the method of crucifixion, then reserved for the worst criminals. This Jesus, perhaps a miracle worker like others in his time, is, in the eyes of our time, a simple anti-hero.
But even under such a simple material reading, Jesus of Nazareth is a curious, relevant character. His preaching, the time, and the place where he did it are enough to look at it. Jesus inaugurates the Fraternity by saying that all men are brothers and sisters because we have a typical Father: God. Jesus Christ initiates freedom and actualizes free will with the paradox that to God and Caesar, what belongs to each one. Jesus, with the parable of the Prodigal Son, places us on the importance of forgiveness and reconciliation in the family and beyond it. Jesus tells us that the greatness of things is in the apparent smallness of a mustard seed. And there would be many more non-religious reasons to "fall in love" with the figure whom our José Martí deeply admired: "On the cross, a man died in one day; but one must learn to die on the cross every day," he wrote to his friend Gonzalo de Quesada.
I have thought a lot about that priest. What would you talk about with the group of young people? It didn't matter if they were snitches, curious, or just that, young people raised in a materialist-utilitarian society. Because the message of Jesus is for everyone and for all times, it's the reason for Christmas: something new has been born.
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