'Ni�o Dios"

 

Well, as Catholic, I remember my whole life waiting for the Christmas time, because of the feeling you get during this period.

 

I remember when we were singing songs to worship God (Christmas special songs called "Villancicos" in Spanish). Everyplace becomes special during Christmas.

 

At home, we were placing what in Spain we call "Bel�n" (yes, it's Bethelem but in Spanish): the whole family performing something close (or what we think is close) to the real environment of Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph when Jesus borned.

 

We use the same figurines than my parents used lot of years back. Sometimes the size is bigger, and other times it's smaller, but you can be sure that it's a very special moment in every Cathilic family (at least in Spain) to perform the Bel�n. We sing, we pray, we explain to the children the story and we show how beautiful the story is.

 

I understand that for you as Muslim it's difficult to understand it, as far as Islam is against representation of God or Prophets, but it's a very old costume we have, and the meaning is bigger that a simple representation. Is a way to unify the family around something religious. It's really special, believe me.

 

But when it's becoming just a business matter, I hate it. I don't understand the people who are spending dozens of euros per year in this kind of figurines, because the special  thing of it is to use the same every year, and to remember when you were putting it with family members who already passed away, or are living outside. That's something I do every year, remembering my dead uncle (descanse en paz), or my brother who is living outside and working in something that doesn't allow him to spend Christmas here since few years back.

 

I would like to explain you it in better way, I am sorry. But believe me, it's not a business, it's a deep believe, and we are just celebrating Jesus born.

 

Regards,

Patricia

 

Sorry, but I cannot agree with you in what you said, that the first commandment is forbiding the physical representation of the people. What it's forbiding is to worship them, and normally we are not doing.

 

When in my family, we finish placing everything in the Bel�n, we pray to God, and only to Him, asking him, first of all, to take care of our relatives and friends who already were called by Him, and secondly for forgiveness and for his protection in every moment of our lives. But we are not praying to the figurine which represents Jesus, or Mar�a or Jos�, we are praying to the Creator of all of them/us.

 

By my side, I have to recognise that I don't like the Churchs too much, mainly the churchs which are full of representations of Christs, Saints, Virgins... I don't feel confortable with that. But I have at the same time to accept that I cry every Holy Week in my birthtown, when I see what we call "procesiones", where we take images representing part of Jesus Calvary while praying and signing old songs dedicated to them. But that's the same, we are worshiping the Creator, God, we are just remembering through the images what the Humanity did with Jesus, His best creation.

 

But I have never kissed any image, or praying to, nor my family did. We are against this actually, and we believe that it's not necessary to go to the Church daily, or to tell our sins to the pastor, or to have the house full of religious images. We believe that the Faith is something between God and ourselves (and we are lot of Catholics thinking this way).

 

I don't know if I already answered your question... I hope so.

 

Kind regards,

Patricia