A Flame Worth Carrying Into 2026

A Flame Worth Carrying Into 2026 

New Year’s Day Message 

It is no surprise if 2026 arrives carrying the same burdens as the years before it—scandals that refuse to fade, the rising cost of living, and a people yearning for hope in the midst of crisis. 

Yet even amid fear and fatigue, a flicker of hope endures. In the hands of those who truly care, that flicker can become a flame—for peace instead of conflict, for bread instead of hunger, for land instead of dispossession, for justice instead of silence. 

Call it idealism, even impossibility, as may say. But history has always moved forward because some refused to accept that the world must remain as it is. In a modern age driven by crass materialism, it is easy to grow numb—to let scandal become background noise and injustice an everyday inconvenience. That numbness is the real danger. 

Like any other year, this new year does not promise comfort. It offers something harder and more necessary: a choice. To look away, or to remain awake. To accept despair as normal, or to insist—quietly, stubbornly—that dignity, fairness, and compassion still matter. 

May this new year find people not merely hoping, but acting; not merely enduring, but caring; not merely surviving, but believing that even in dark times, light is made by human hands. 

The Day A Republic Remembers, The Ideals A Nation Forget

The Day A Republic Remembers, The Ideals A Nation Forget

It was incomprehensible. Simply incomprehensible. 

The nation once again paused to honor a man who gave his life for truth and freedom—while those in power invoked his name with polished words that rang hollow against reality. On Rizal Day, speeches were delivered, values were recited, and legacy was praised. And yet, the gap between rhetoric and lived experience had never felt wider. 

President Marcos spoke of integrity and accountability, pointing to Rizal’s life and martyrdom as moral guidance in a time when citizens were demanding answers from their leaders. He urged respect for truth, just reform, courage in word and deed. He called on public officials to place country over personal interest. He spoke of youth, of hope, of everyday acts of integrity, weaving Rizal’s ideals neatly into slogans of national renewal. 

Meanwhile, Vice President Duterte, in her own address, echoed similar themes. Rizal’s struggle, she said, was not only against foreign domination but against abuse, division, and moral decay. True freedom, she declared, was the liberation of minds and hearts from corruption and disunity. She warned against the fading of wisdom and unity, and urged citizens to stand for truth and justice. 

The words were flawless. The delivery, rehearsed. The symbolism, impeccable. Just like each year, as the nation paused to honor a man who gave his life for freedom—while continuing, day after day, to erode the very ideals he stood for. The contradiction was impossible to ignore. Ceremonies were held, speeches delivered, wreaths laid. And yet, the substance of what Rizal lived and died for was quietly set aside. 

Rizal Day had become ritual without reckoning. 

He had never written for applause. He had never spoken to be quoted once a year and forgotten. His words were meant to unsettle, to provoke thought, to demand moral discipline. Independence, as he understood it, was not a trophy to be displayed but a responsibility to be carried. A burden, heavy and unglamorous, that required vigilance and courage. 

From his distance in history, the present would have looked disturbingly familiar. Truth diluted by convenience. Reason drowned out by noise. Loyalty demanded, but only when it was unthinking and uncritical. Those who questioned power were branded as threats, while those who stayed silent were praised as patriots. 

And yet, it was precisely this kind of perfection that exposed the problem. 

Because when leaders who preside over dysfunction, silence accountability, or benefit from entrenched power structures speak of integrity, it ceases to be homage and becomes performance. When calls for truth are issued from positions that thrive on selective memory and moral convenience, the language of Rizal is reduced to ornamentation. A script. A shield. 

This was patriotism as theater—solemn, ceremonial, and safely disconnected from consequence. 

Rizal did not die for slogans. He did not write so his name could be used to legitimize authority while the substance of his critique was ignored. His life was an indictment of corruption, of intellectual submission, of a people made docile by fear and comfort. To invoke him while presiding over systems that reward obedience and punish dissent is not reverence. It is appropriation. 

The danger was not hypocrisy alone, but normalization. The steady conditioning of a public to accept symbolic morality in place of real reform. To applaud speeches about accountability while accountability itself remained elusive. To mistake commemoration for conscience. 

This was the very condition Rizal warned against: a society corrupted not merely by tyrants, but by submission. By a willingness to accept appearances over truth. By a preference for ritual over reckoning. 

Independence, as Rizal understood it, demanded clarity of thought and moral courage—especially from those who governed. It required leaders willing to be judged by the standards they proclaimed. Without that, the language of freedom became empty, and patriotism devolved into sheer performativism in an age of corruption and subservience. 

Thus, Rizal Day stood exposed—not as a triumph, but as a test repeatedly failed. 

To honor Rizal was never about quoting his virtues. It was about embodying them, especially when inconvenient. Especially when power was at stake. Anything less was not remembrance. 

It was spectacle.    

Over Jägsinthe and Opalite

Over Jägsinthe and Opalite

 To be honest, I admire you true,

Though I fear my words may misconstrue.

No matter how I confess or admit,

Your presence alone makes my spirit lit.

Is it your beauty that draws my eye?

Yes, but your wit and kindness amplify.

I cannot say why your light takes flight,

Dimless and bright in this dark of night.

Like absinthe’s sway, your magic delights,

Or Jäger’s warmth, a guide through nights.

Your perfume, sweetest, calms my ire,

A balm for the soul, a secret fire.

And when the brown and green combine,

Herbs steeped in wine, a taste divine,

The sighs once soft now boldly scream,

In poems like Marx, Nietzsche, Heine’s dream.

Forgive me if wine has loosened my tongue,

Or the fusion of spirits made thoughts unsung.

Perhaps I’m hopeless, seeking sparks anew,

Letting my heart numb from past’s residue.

For looking back, I feared dismissing,

Not wishing to spoil friendship worth cherishing.

Yet I admit, your presence inspires,

Like absinthe blazing green-hot fires.

I tried to temper with water and sweet,

But the drink’s strong pulse quickened my beat.

I wondered why your charm so rare

Leads me to depths without a care.

Tomorrow comes, just ordinary day,

Waiting for festive nights in a few days’ sway.

And messages say simply: “Move along.”

But tell me, is it easier to forget after fun?

Pardon these thoughts, the liquor’s flow,

They spill as poems, where feelings show.

Perhaps never mind me, or words I say,

But I am just thankful that you cleared my way. 

"Of Absinthe-laced Echoes"

"Of Absinthe-laced Echoes"

The Heart Stayed Lit 

Sometimes I think—
let them keep their borrowed light,
for joy survives best
when untouched by my sight.
I know this truth, however kind,
to step too near is to unbind
the fragile peace that hearts defend,
and turn beginnings into ends.

So I choose silence, soft and thin,
a careful art of not stepping in.
I draw my lines where shadows stay,
believing distance clears the way—
that limiting each word, each glance,
might quiet rumor, chance, or chance,
and cleanse intent of names unmeant,
until desire learns consent.

Sometimes I think, if we should speak,
my thoughts would spill, no longer meek.
So pardon me if I appear
inspired beyond what’s proper here.
Is it your beauty, calm, or grace,
or love that lingers in that face?
No wonder such a glow, so rare,
is called strange by those unaware.

For in these days, when careful minds
mistake the pure for poorly timed,
even the loveliest of words
are judged as shame, or thought absurd.
Yet what is strange in petals blown,
or twilight claiming sea alone?
Must all that passes softly through
be labeled fault for being true?

I cannot deny—nor will I feign—
your presence stirred my quiet grain.
As though my thoughts, too long at rest,
rose briefly, then dissolved to mist.
Call it embarrassment, if you must—
yet what disgrace lies in the dust
of blossoms carried by the air,
or sunsets fading, unaware?

If this be my last offered line,
let it seem clean, without design:
I stood, I felt, I did not claim,
and let the moment keep its name.
No vow was sworn, no bond made fast—
yet neither wholly slipped to past.
For even as the light withdrew,
the heart stayed lit—quiet, and true.

She Who Arrived Like Absinthe

How beautiful she is—

As if the green fairy turned human, gifting me bliss;

A quiet radiance I dare not dismiss,

A presence that softens even sorrow’s kiss.

She moves like a thought the heart keeps secret,

Light as a vow never spoken but meant;

In her silence, prayers feel suddenly sent,

As if heaven paused, briefly intent.

Her gaze carries absinthe’s emerald glow,

Sweet with longing, bitter with what I know;

One look, and the night learns how to slow,

Teaching ache how to gently let go.

She is warmth poured slow into fragile hours,

Not a flame that consumes, but one that empowers;

A bloom that rises through cracked stone towers,

A mercy disguised as borrowed power.

If she leaves, she will linger still,

In the way the dark bends toward the will;

To hope again—soft, fragile, and real,

Like a dream that fades, yet teaches you to feel.

And if love never dares to speak her name,

Let this wonder remain the same:

That once, through grace both wild and tame,

Beauty arrived—and unmade my pain. 

A Night Given to Prayer and Wine

Trying to make the night grow warm,
Through wine and old songs’ tender form,
Enough to stir, if not disarm,
The quiet ache that courts its harm.

I pray to Saint Hubertus low,
While green-faired visions come and go,
Enough to ask what made it so—
Why your presence set thoughts aglow.

Pardon me if unworthy, heartbroken,
If grief has named me once forsaken;
Is it because those thoughts called love
Turned into poems, sent far above?

Maybe the fusion of brown and green
Tastes stronger, bittersweet it seems,
Reminding me of what has been—
Of someone still who lingers in.

Enough to yearn, if not inspire,
A quiet hope that dares not tire;
Enough to name this tender fire,
Though never claimed, nor set entire.

The herb, as if brewed by prayer or spell,
By whispered vow I cannot tell,
Grants one brief chance to hearts unwell,
To warm despair where shadows dwell.

Through brew that lingered all the night,
I learned this ache was not of spite,
But warmth that bloomed in softened light,
Bittersweet truth held tight in sight.

A warmth that meets thy tender taste,
Neither claimed nor left to waste,
As fleeting as a hurried grace—
A kiss remembered, touched in haste.

If this be end, then let it be
A gentle leaving, calm and free:
Like wine gone warm, like song gone thin,
I loosen now—and fade within.  

When a Child Threatens Kings: The Uncomfortable Truth of Christmas

When a Child Threatens Kings: The Uncomfortable Truth of Christmas

It is an ordinary day for those who celebrated the season as it had come to be known: tables groaning with food, wine glasses brimming, gifts stacked high enough to admire, compare, and quietly boast. To the casual observer, this was Christmas: a time of abundance, cheer, and ritual. Yet beneath the glitter and pageantry lay a deeper truth: the values most visibly celebrated were not those of compassion, justice, or liberation, but of capital, accumulation, and spectacle. In this modern ritual, the Christ child—the one whose birth once disrupted empires—had been domesticated into a token of consumption. 

In a world where poverty remains structural, corruption unresolved, and entire populations subordinated to entrenched interests, this season of mandated cheer functions primarily as distraction. “Be jolly,” society demands, even as starvation, displacement, and exploitation are deliberately pushed from view. Modern Christmas celebrates commodities more than people, appearances more than truth, accumulation more than conscience. It is a season in which the voices of the powerless are drowned beneath the clatter of profit, the hum of fluorescent lights, and the smooth packaging of luxury goods. 

Yet the story of Jesus, from its very inception, was never meant to comfort empire. He was born not into serenity but into the grip of domination. First-century Palestine—Judaea and Galilee—was a land under Roman occupation, maintained by military force, taxation, and political puppets. The census of Quirinius (Luke 2:1–5) reminds us that even the most intimate aspects of life—the timing of a birth, the location of one’s home—were regulated by imperial authority. Land was confiscated, peasants impoverished, and daily life shadowed by soldiers’ boots. Local rulers, such as Herod the Great and his successors, acted as intermediaries between Rome and the people, enforcing tribute, suppressing dissent, and preserving their own privilege. 

The Jewish people, long accustomed to oppression, yearned for a messiah: a figure who would restore justice, defend the vulnerable, and reassert the dignity of the people. This hope took different forms. The Pharisees sought to preserve identity through the Law (Matthew 23:1–12), emphasizing spiritual discipline in a corrupt world. The Sadducees accommodated Rome to maintain Temple privileges (Acts 5:17–18). The Essenes withdrew into the wilderness, awaiting divine intervention (Luke 5:16). The Zealots took up arms, convinced that liberation required blood and fire (Luke 22:37). 

And then there was Jesus, whose path was neither withdrawal nor violent revolt, but radical incarnation. From the beginning, his birth was a statement of liberation. Mary’s song—the Magnificat (Luke 1:46–55)—was not a lullaby but a manifesto. It declares that God “lifts the lowly, fills the hungry, and scatters the proud.” It envisions rulers brought low, the oppressed restored, and the hungry nourished. This vision shaped Jesus’ understanding of his vocation: to embody God’s justice, mercy, and solidarity in a world fractured by exploitation and domination. Mary was not merely his mother but his first theologian, teaching him that God’s kingdom sides with the powerless and disrupts the powerful. 

Herod’s reaction to this birth—the massacre of the innocents (Matthew 2:16–18)—demonstrates that Jesus’ arrival was profoundly threatening to imperial order. A child born under occupation was not harmless; he was a symbol of God’s alternative vision. The angels’ warning to Joseph to flee to Egypt (Matthew 2:13–15) illustrates the political danger inherent in this divine announcement. Jesus’ later life and crucifixion further confirm the radical stakes: he was called before Pilate, the Roman governor, not only for religious disputes (John 19:12–16). He was executed as a threat to the empire, a rebel against domination. His kingdom, proclaimed through teaching, parables, and acts of mercy, challenged structures of power and promised an alternative order founded not on coercion but on justice, community, and love. 

Yet today, this radical message is frequently obscured. Christmas has been reduced to performative cheer and ritualized consumption. Faith is treated as insurance: a guarantee of protection, prosperity, and social respectability. Scripture is often misappropriated: obedience to authority is exalted without critique (Matthew 25:14–30), accumulation is sanctified, and solidarity with the poor is optional. Charitable acts become transactions of conscience rather than commitments to justice. The radical, prophetic call of Christ—his insistence on aligning with the marginalized, defending the oppressed, and confronting power—is diminished into ornamentation. 

This note insists that the incarnation is inherently political. Jesus’ birth is not a neutral event; it is God entering history on the side of the poor, the powerless, and the oppressed. To follow Christ is to recognize that God’s preferential option is for those crushed by empire (Luke 4:18–19). The mission of Jesus demands engagement with the realities of structural injustice: economic exploitation, political oppression, and social marginalization. To ignore the cries of the hungry, the homeless, and the enslaved is to ignore the Christ who comes precisely in their midst. 

Even in a world of excess, of glittering streets and overfilled shopping bags, the story of Christmas refuses to be neutralized. Incarnation is not consumption. Radical faith is not performance. Salvation is not measured by wealth or comfort but by solidarity, justice, and resistance to oppression. Mary’s Magnificat, Jesus’ ministry, and the cross itself testify that God’s kingdom interrupts human empire, confronts domination, and aligns with the powerless. Call it political—but ask the uncomfortable questions: What does Messiah mean if not anointed ruler? Why was he called King of the Jews? Why was he crucified—a Roman method reserved for rebels and traitors—rather than stoned under Jewish law? Why did he stand before a Roman governor instead of only the Sanhedrin? Why did Rome take him seriously enough to execute him publicly? 

Because Jesus was proclaiming an alternative kingdom in the shadow of empire: a kingdom that did not rely on legions or currency, but on justice, mercy, and radical community. His birth announced that Rome was not eternal. His life revealed that domination was not divine. His death exposed the violence required to sustain power. And his resurrection declared that empire does not get the final word. Yet today, this message and reality is dismissed as irrelevant—as long as Christmas remains a performance. Christ is commemorated, not followed. Faith is reduced to aesthetic devotion while injustice is left intact. Christianity becomes a language of protection and prosperity rather than redemption and transformation. Belief is treated as an investment portfolio for the soul—returns guaranteed, risks ignored. 

Solidarity with the poor and oppressed is reframed as optional charity. Structural injustice is spiritualized away. Scripture is selectively misused: obedience to authority emphasized without critique, the parable of the talents weaponized to sanctify accumulation, silence mistaken for holiness. What remains is not faith, but performative religion—safe for power, profitable for markets, and empty of consequence. 

And this is the great irony of the modern Christmas: a season meant to announce the collapse of unjust power now props it up. A birth that once terrified kings is now sold as decoration. A child born under occupation is repackaged for consumption. The radical is made quaint. The dangerous is made harmless. 

But the story refuses to stay buried. 

Thus, every celebration of Christmas carries an implicit question: will it be a season of distraction and accumulation, or a moment to witness and participate in God’s kingdom breaking into history? The story of Jesus—born in occupation, raised under threat, crucified as a rebel—demands that the faithful choose, and act, decisively. Which kingdom will humanity serve: the one of empire, wealth, and spectacle, or the one of justice, mercy, and liberation?   

Where the Sun Stops, the Light Begins: Christ as the Sun of the Season

Where the Sun Stops, the Light Begins: Christ as the Sun of the Season

In the age when Rome acclaimed the Unconquered Sun, when Sol Invictus marked the turning of the year and the promise that light would return, Christianity did not simply adopt a date. It advanced a claim. What the cosmos had long intimated, the Church declared fulfilled—not in a cycle, but in a person. 

The winter solstice proclaimed that darkness was not absolute, that light, though diminished, was never finally overcome. Christianity affirmed this intuition and carried it further: what nature suggested, history disclosed. The return of the sun ceased to be merely an astronomical reassurance and became a theological proclamation—the assertion that true Light had entered the world, not as force or abstraction, but as flesh. As the Gospel announces, “In him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” (John 1:4–5). 

Thus the calendar itself became an argument. What once marked the resilience of nature was reinterpreted as the advent of meaning. Light was no longer bound to orbit or season, but to presence, memory, and promise. “The true Light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world” (John 1:9)—not rising by necessity, but arriving by intention. 

Where the sun had been venerated as a power within nature, Christ was proclaimed as Light uncreated—light that does not wane with seasons or collapse with empires. “I am the light of the world,” Jesus declares; “whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12). This light is not cyclical, not subject to ascent and decline, but personal and self-giving. As James writes of the divine source of all illumination, God is “the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17). 

Justin Martyr, writing in the second century to an audience steeped in solar symbolism, made the distinction explicit. Christ, he argued, is not another cosmic force among many, but the Logos—the rational source of all order. Scripture itself had already framed this claim: “All things were created through him and for him… and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:16–17). The sun was not denied, but subordinated; it was a sign, not the source. 

Augustine later pressed the inversion with characteristic precision. “He was born on the day which is the shortest,” he preached, “yet from which the light begins to increase.” But Augustine was equally clear in drawing the boundary: “Let us not worship the sun, but Him who made the sun.” The birth celebrated was not the strengthening of a star, but the humility of the Word. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” writes John, “and we have seen his glory” (John 1:14). 

Athanasius carried the argument beyond symbolism into ontology and redemption. The incarnation was not merely illumination but re-creation: “The Word of God came in His own person… that He might recreate man made after the Image.” Scripture names this moment not as chance or recurrence, but as decision: “When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman” (Galatians 4:4). 

The solstice, then, was not erased but reinterpreted. What pagans honored as the resilience of nature, Christians proclaimed as the arrival of grace. Not light returning by necessity, but Light arriving by choice—light that does more than outlast darkness. “Our Savior Christ Jesus abolished death,” Paul writes, “and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Timothy 1:10). 

This was not accommodation, but confrontation. The true Sol Invictus was not crowned in gold, but wrapped in swaddling cloth; not enthroned in the sky, but laid in a manger. His victory was not the repetition of nature’s cycles, but their rupture—light that conquers death itself. The Christian imagination looks even beyond the sun’s final setting, to a city where “there is no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb” (Revelation 21:23). 

The feast remained.

The meaning was overturned.  

Born at the Margins: When God Entered History from Below

Born at the Margins: When God Entered History from Below

It must be said—clearly, publicly, and without nostalgia clouding the truth: Christmas is not a soft-focus memory wrapped in tinsel and candlelight. It is not a seasonal pause from history. Christmas is an interruption. It breaks into the ordinary flow of power, profit, and performance and declares that history does not belong to those who merely manage it, but to the God who redeems it. 

In the fullness of time, God entered the human story not through palaces, policy rooms, or markets, but through a manger—an occupied land, a taxed people, a family displaced by imperial decree. This was not a sentimental choice. It was a verdict. Heaven rendered judgment on how the world organizes power: not upward, not inward, not toward accumulation—but downward, outward, toward communion. 

This is the claim of the Incarnation: liberation did not descend from above—it walked in from below. God did not arrive as a solution imposed by authority, but as a presence born into precarity. 

And this matters now. 

In an age of widening inequality, where wealth concentrates in fewer hands while many live one crisis away from collapse, the manger stands as a rebuke to economies that prize growth over people. In a world marked by displacement—by refugees crossing borders, families uprooted by war, climate, and corporate neglect—the Holy Family’s flight and fragility are no longer distant symbols but urgent mirrors. In societies where political power hardens into spectacle and coercion, Christmas insists that true authority is exercised in vulnerability and service. 

Locally, where communities struggle under rising costs, insecure labor, and systems that reward silence over truth, the Incarnation exposes the lie that dignity must be earned. Internationally, amid conflicts justified in the language of security and order, the Christ child reminds the world that peace cannot be manufactured by force—it must be born through justice. 

Christmas interrupts the narratives that tell us salvation comes from stronger borders, bigger weapons, louder markets, or cleaner optics. It declares instead that God enters history at its fault lines—among the poor, the overworked, the erased, the unseen—and calls that place holy. 

The Incarnation is not divine withdrawal from reality but divine immersion in it. God does not observe suffering from a safe distance; God chooses proximity. The manger is heaven’s refusal to collaborate with indifference. 

And so, every Christmas, history is questioned again. Power is unsettled. Comfort is challenged. The world is reminded that transformation does not begin in control rooms but in cramped spaces where hope insists on being born. 

This is not ancient theology. It is a present-tense confrontation. Christmas asks, still and relentlessly: Whose side are we on? Where do we stand when God stands with the lowly? 

The Incarnation as a Political and Spiritual Act 

The birth of Jesus Christ was not an aesthetic gesture. It was a declaration. God did not come to decorate a scene or inspire fleeting sentiment. God came to disrupt, to intervene, and to identify with the vulnerable. God identified not with the secure (Matthew 23:6–7), but with the vulnerable; not with empire (Luke 20:20–25), but with the occupied; not with privilege, but with the poor (Luke 4:18–19). 

The manger was no symbol of weakness. It was an act of radical alignment. God chose proximity over prestige, presence over power. He did not appear in Herod’s court, the Roman forum, or the halls of Jerusalem’s elite. He came as a child, born among the lowly, in a place no one considered strategic—a stable, a feeding trough, the edge of society (Luke 2:7). In this, God made a statement: true authority is exercised in vulnerability and solidarity, not in domination. 

Mary’s song—still echoing across centuries—was not devotional poetry alone. It was a manifesto (Luke 1:46–55):

•  “He has brought down rulers from their thrones…” — the proud scattered.
•  “…and exalted those of humble estate” — the mighty unseated; the lowly raised.
• “…he has filled the hungry with good things…” — the hungry filled.
• “…and sent the rich away empty” — a reversal of worldly priorities. 

This was not future tense. This was the sound of a revolution announced before the child could speak. The prophet Micah had already foreseen it: “And you, Bethlehem…from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel” (Micah 5:2). But this ruler would not arrive with swords or armies. He would arrive swaddled, breathing the same air as the marginalized, whose lives the world had written off. 

Even the shepherds, outsiders in society, heard the first proclamation (Luke 2:8–20). The angelic chorus announced “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” This was a political statement: peace is not neutral. It is shalom—justice, restoration, wholeness. It begins at the margins, not the centers of worldly power. 

The Incarnation declares that God’s revolution is not deferred, not abstract, not cosmetic. It begins in the most unlikely places, among the most unlikely people, and calls the world to witness, to respond, and to participate in the overturning of oppression. 

The Margins Hear First 

History records it plainly: the first witnesses to the birth of Christ were not kings, priests, or senators—they were shepherds (Luke 2:8–20). Laborers, outsiders, men and women living at the edge of society, tending flocks by night, vulnerable to both weather and law. No court was summoned. No council consulted. The good news bypassed the centers of authority and went straight to the margins. 

This was no accident. God’s kingdom has always begun where the world is least invested. The shepherds were the first to hear because God’s attention is drawn to the overlooked, the oppressed, and the invisible. Scripture consistently places God on the side of the weak: “He lifts up the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes” (Psalm 113:7–8). God’s favor rests not on social rank, but on openness to grace. 

The angelic proclamation of “peace on earth, goodwill toward men” (Luke 2:14) is often misread as sentimental. But in biblical context, peace—shalom—is a call to justice, wholeness, and restored relationships. It is a peace that resists oppression and confronts systems that crush human dignity. God’s peace does not excuse exploitation; it demands accountability. 

The Magnificat (Luke 1:46–55) reinforces this: God reverses the world’s hierarchies. The proud scattered, the mighty unseated, the lowly raised. The hungry filled, the rich sent away empty. And these reversals are not theoretical—they are practical, embodied, lived. The child in the manger signals that divine attention and action are directed first toward those the world has neglected. 

Locally and globally, the message remains urgent. In cities where informal workers struggle to survive, in nations where migrants flee violence, in regions where systems of domination threaten freedom, the shepherds’ example calls us to listen first to the marginalized. God does not begin with the powerful or the famous. God begins with those whose voices are often drowned out by politics, profit, or pretense. 

To hear the margins is to hear the Incarnation itself. To witness Christ born among the overlooked is to understand that God’s revolution of love does not require pomp or protocol. It requires presence, attentiveness, and solidarity. Every angelic announcement across centuries continues this lesson: the good news is first for those who have least in worldly terms, and through them, the world is called to change. 

Peace with Justice 

The angelic chorus declared: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” (Luke 2:14). Too often, this phrase is read as mere sentiment, a lullaby for a quiet night. But in its original context, it is a proclamation of shalom—a peace inseparable from justice, wholeness, and the restoration of relationships. 

Peace in God’s economy is never passive. It is never the absence of conflict achieved by oppression. It is the presence of equity, the restoration of dignity, and the healing of what has been broken. Isaiah had foretold it: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore” (Isaiah 2:4). True peace requires transformation—it demands the overturning of systems that perpetuate fear, violence, and inequality. 

This is not abstract theology. The Incarnation calls the faithful to act in concrete ways:

• Where poverty persists, Christ’s birth is a summons to restore dignity (Matthew 25:35–40).
• Where violence terrorizes communities, Christ enters as the Prince of Peace, calling for reconciliation and protection of the vulnerable (Romans 12:17–21).
• Where injustice is normalized, Christ’s birth is a call to resistance, advocacy, and the pursuit of justice (Micah 6:8). 

Locally, this challenges societies where inequality widens and the poor are neglected. Globally, it confronts wars fought for resources, borders that exile, and economic structures that exploit. Peace with justice is not passive—it is prophetic. It aligns human society with God’s design, lifting up the lowly, humbling the proud, and filling the hungry with good things (Luke 1:46–55). 

The Incarnation makes a daring claim: God’s peace is inseparable from action on behalf of the oppressed. It is not a peace of comfort, but a peace that shakes complacency, challenges authority, and transforms communities. Christmas is the divine intervention that interrupts cycles of exploitation and reminds us that the world as it is is not the world as it ought to be. 

To embrace Christmas fully is to embrace this radical vision of peace. It is to understand that the Christ who lay in a manger is the same Christ who calls us, here and now, to act courageously for justice, to speak truth to power, and to live as instruments of reconciliation in a fractured world. 

A Message for Today 

Christmas is not a quiet retreat from reality. It is not an excuse for sentimentality or nostalgia. It is a summons—a summons to confront the realities of our world and to act in alignment with the God who chose the manger over the palace. 

Where there is poverty, Christ is born anew to bring dignity. Scripture is unambiguous: “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40). In Manila’s sprawling urban landscapes, in remote barangays, and in communities where basic needs go unmet, the Christ child calls us to lift up the poor, not with charity alone, but with justice, opportunity, and solidarity. 

Where there is violence, Christ comes as the Prince of Peace. From local streets plagued by crime and conflict, to regions scarred by civil war, terrorism, and displacement, Christ’s birth interrupts cycles of fear. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God” (Matthew 5:9). Peace is not mere absence of strife—it is the proactive work of reconciliation, protection, and the restoration of broken relationships. 

Where there is injustice, Christ’s birth is a summons to resistance and transformation. The Scriptures call the faithful to act: “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8). From systemic corruption and political neglect, to economic exploitation and global inequities, the Incarnation declares that the world as it is is not the world as it ought to be. God enters history to reshape it. 

Christmas is liberation. The child in the manger is not a passive figure to be admired from a distance. God enters human struggle, aligning with the marginalized, the oppressed, the lowly. This is the same call echoed by the prophets: to defend the oppressed, seek justice, and embody mercy (Isaiah 1:17; Proverbs 31:8–9). 

Locally and internationally, the message is consistent: God’s revolution of love breaks chains, challenges power, and restores human dignity. It demands that Christians, churches, and communities move beyond ritual observance and sentiment. It demands action—speaking truth to power, lifting the lowly, and living in solidarity with those society discards. 

Christmas does not offer an escape from the world’s hardships. It offers intervention, transformation, and a blueprint for hope. It declares that God’s kingdom begins not with those who dominate, but with those who serve, with those who are willing to live in radical solidarity, and with those who make room for the divine in the margins. 

Theological Vision for a Church Under Fluorescent Lights 

The Christmas story is not merely a narrative of a child born in Bethlehem. It is a theological declaration that challenges both hearts and societies. The Incarnation embodies a vision of God’s engagement with the world—a vision that is political, spiritual, and deeply transformative. 

1. Incarnation as Solidarity
   
   God does not liberate from afar. God enters history, shares human struggle, and embraces vulnerability. As the prophet Isaiah declared: “For unto us a child is born… and his government shall be upon his shoulder… and he will judge with righteousness” (Isaiah 9:6–7). The judgment here is not abstract, but relational: it asserts God’s presence alongside those who suffer, those who hunger, those who live without voice or protection. Christ’s birth among the poor, the displaced, and the marginalized (Luke 2:7) models divine solidarity—God does not observe oppression; God bears it with humanity. 
   
   
2. Salvation as Liberation
   
   Salvation is not only a promise of heaven; it is freedom here and now. Jesus’ mission was proclaimed from the start: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me… to proclaim liberty to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed” (Luke 4:18–19). Salvation encompasses liberation from sin, fear, oppression, and alienation. It is not passive consolation—it is active transformation. Every act of justice, every moment of mercy, every gesture of reconciliation is a participation in God’s redemptive work. 
   
   
3. Community as Witness
   
   The Church is called to be a living manger in the world. It is not a museum or a sanctuary of comfort alone, but a site where Christ is born again through acts of justice, mercy, and love. As James reminds: “Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (James 2:17). The faithful community embodies the Incarnation by lifting the lowly, protecting the oppressed, and advocating for systemic transformation. It is in communal witness, in the concrete acts of solidarity, that the Christmas message becomes visible and tangible. 
   
   
4. Prophetic Presence
   
   The theological vision of Christmas is inherently prophetic. Like the prophets of old (Amos 5:24; Micah 6:8), it calls society to account. It does not compromise with exploitation, silence injustice, or excuse violence. Instead, it demands engagement, courage, and the active pursuit of God’s shalom—a peace inseparable from justice, truth, and mercy. 

Christmas, therefore, is theology in action. It is a framework for understanding God’s intervention in human history and our calling to respond. It is a challenge to stand with the marginalized, to resist oppression, and to make room for the divine in everyday life. It is the blueprint for a society where the lowly are lifted, the hungry are filled, and the proud and powerful are humbled—not through human force, but through the radical love and presence of God incarnate. 

*** 

Christmas is not a holiday for passive reflection; it is a summons to action, a challenge to align with the liberating work of God in history. The Christ who entered a humble manger calls the faithful to concrete, transformative engagement:

• Lift up the lowly. Advocate for the poor, the marginalized, and the forgotten. “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute” (Proverbs 31:8–9). In cities and barrios alike, in communities scarred by neglect or displacement, Christ is present among those whose dignity is denied. To serve them is to serve Him.

• Practice radical hospitality. Be like the innkeeper who makes room for the stranger, the displaced, the weary. “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (Hebrews 13:2). Christ enters where there is welcome. Our homes, our workplaces, our communities must become spaces where His presence can dwell, especially among the vulnerable.

• Live prophetic hope. Resist systems of domination, corruption, and exploitation. Embody God’s kingdom of justice and peace in daily life. “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24). This is not optional sentiment; it is faithful discipleship. 

Christmas demands courage. It is a call to confront poverty, violence, and injustice, not to retreat into sentimentality. It is an invitation to bear witness to God’s intervention in history—to incarnate hope where it is most needed, to be instruments of reconciliation where conflict persists, and to embody peace that is inseparable from justice.

Christmas is liberation. It is God’s revolution of love, breaking chains, yhealing wounds, and renewing creation from the inside out. The child born in Bethlehem is the same Christ who calls the world today to:

Be born in every communities through acts of mercy, justice, and solidarity;

Be born in every consciences through courage, truth, and moral clarity;

Be born in every relationships through reconciliation, forgiveness, and steadfast love.

May the Christ born in Bethlehem be born again among the marginalized, the oppressed, and the forgotten. May His liberating love free the world from fear, inertia, and complicity—and empower us to set others free.

May His peace transform our neighborhoods, workplaces, and nations into signs of God’s kingdom. May every corner of society reflect the radical reversal of the world that the Incarnation inaugurated: the proud humbled, the powerful challenged, the hungry filled, and the lowly lifted.

Merry Christmas.

Christ is born.

And the world—if all as faithful—is being made new.