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By the time you read this in today’s paper, the first of the nine Misa de Gallo masses held everywhere Filipinos could hold it are over. You have eight Simbang Gabi masses left to go to.

Dating back to the Spanish time when friars accommodated Filipino farmers and farm workers who have to go to the fields and haciendas at dawn, this tradition continues to this day as the unmistakable sign that Christmas is near. It is our own countdown to Christmas.

Pope Francis honored this Filipino tradition by presiding over a Simbang Gabi mass in 2019 at St. Peter’s Basilica, with many Filipinos living and working in Italy in attendance.

However, the pomp and pageantry in church , and the strong desire to sell and spend, tend to divert attention away from the sights, smells and sounds of the event Christmas purportedly remembers.

I leave it to the economists and historians to say where the problem started or where the confusion began. The commercialization has been so rampant that it is only barely emphasized that the Christmas story actually tells of a young couple being turned away by all the innkeepers, and then ultimately having their son born in a manger surrounded by animals and witnessed only by shepherds.

Regardless of our different creeds, that is a fantastic story of hope. But it most especially inspires the modern-day equivalents of the shepherds who have to work practically round-the-clock. Imagine, a king is born in the company of the poor — not in some mansion, palace or castle.

The jeepney drivers, minimum wage workers, farmers of rice and vegetables, activists, public school teachers, and public health workers can look up to the hope given by Christmas at the end of a year marked by threats to livelihood, high inflation and escalating cost of living.

If Christmas happened this 2023 in the Philippines, these ordinary and working people would stand in for the shepherds of the past and have the privilege of paying homage to the infant-king. Instead of a manger, the baby could be born in a squatter’s shanty, a cramped bedspace, or what passes as sleeping quarters for stay-in workers.

But if it happened this time again in Bethlehem, the traveling couple of Joseph and Mary might be stopped at an Israeli Defense Forces checkpoint, or they would have to dodge bombs as they look for a place to stay.

Located in the West Bank in historic Palestine, Bethlehem and other West Bank cities and towns have also been raided by Israeli forces since October, according to the Palestinian Wafa news agency as quoted by Al Jazeera.

Attacks are not new to the Church of the Nativity, which was built on the site of the Jesus’ manger as per Christian tradition. Dozens of Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant churches, as well as Mosques are also located in Bethlehem.

In a widely-reported incident in April 2002, when “Israel imposed a military siege on the Church of the Nativity in occupied Bethlehem after some 200 Palestinians took refuge inside the church,” according to the the Middle East Monitor. Even the US network PBS made a documentary about it.
In its 20th anniversary remembrance of the siege, the Middle East Monitor (April 8, 2022) stated:

"The image of Israeli soldiers from an occupation army besieging a church — and not just any church; the Church of the Nativity — sparked global outrage. The Vatican issued a stern warning to Israel to respect religious sites. A spokesman for Catholic monks in the Holy Land was reported as saying that Israeli soldiers were guilty of an 'indescribable act of barbarity."

"Israel tried to impose a media blackout. Occupation troops confiscated the government-issued press cards of 24 journalists and reporters in Bethlehem who were working for foreign television stations and press agencies. Journalists were blocked from going to the church and Israeli forces opened fire at the car of journalist Mohammed Mousa Manasra."

Jesus and Mary are important not just to Christians. Quite unknown to many, Muslims also honor Jesus (Isa, in Arabic) as the Messiah in the Quran. Mary (Miryam, in Arabic) meanwhile has an entire chapter in the Quran devoted to her story as the mother of Jesus. Miryam is the only book named after a woman in the entire Islamic holy book.

With Christmas fast approaching, we can only hope that the global uproar over the violence against civilians in Gaza and the West Bank would force a new ceasefire, and the cessation of hostilities.