THE RETURN of Christmas, at the end of every year, appears like a promise of better tidings. Even Jose Rizal wrote longingly of the season. In 1886, he wrote his new friend Ferdinand Blumentritt from Berlin: ?At home the whole family partakes of a good soup at midnight, and the children decorate a Belen with the image of the Child Jesus, the animals, etc. This season is the most beautiful and pleasant we have in the Philippines.? Two years later, writing Blumentritt from London, he explained his attachment at greater length. ?This is the feast that I like to celebrate best. It reminds me of the many happy days not only of my childhood but also of history. Whether Christ was born or not exactly on this day, I don?t know; but chronological accuracy has nothing to do with tonight?s event. A grand genius had been born who preached truth and love; who suffered because of his mission, but on account of his sufferings, the world has become better, if not saved.?

At the end of a true annus horribilis like 2009, however, many of us may find fewer consolations in the rites of Christmas.

We have not yet recovered from the series of blows that sent us reeling: the death of democracy?s icon, Cory Aquino, reminded us how far we had distanced ourselves from the better angels of our nature; the massive flooding caused by ?Ondoy? and ?Pepeng? told us how vulnerable we had become to both natural and man-made calamities; the vicious mass killings in Ampatuan, Maguindanao, shocked us into recognizing the culture of violence embedded in our politics; the cavalier imposition of martial law stunned us into the realization that inordinate greed and the primacy of self-interest may condemn us, all over again, to repeat the past.

Many other tragedies marked the year, from start to finish. Even the majestic Mayon Volcano has cast its long shadow over Rizal?s beloved season.

What is a largely Catholic citizenry to make of all this?

Those who are content to inhabit what is called cultural Catholicism may find the rites less consoling, or even empty, at this time of great stress. A Catholic by culture alone may see the noche buena, the gift-giving, the endless round of well-wishing, the tiring (and tiresome) caroling, as just so much tinsel. What do these all mean, anyway, when your neighbor?s Christmas is spent in an evacuation center? To be sure, there is also the cultural Catholic who lives in cocooned isolation, indifferent to the plight of his neighbors, interested only in the gifts coming his way. (In this sense, and on a much smaller, more personal scale, many of us are guilty of inordinate greed too.)

But the practicing Catholic is alive to the possibilities of his faith. This means both seeing the good, and accepting the bad. Because of the crassly commercial nature of the way the world (even its non-Christian parts) celebrates the Christmas season, ?seeing the good? seems easy to understand and easy to put into practice. But if that were all there is to the Christian faith, there would be little to differentiate it from, say, positive-attitude, New Age thinking. What makes Christmas different for Christians, Rizal (not exactly a fervent believer in his maturity) identifies exactly. ?A grand genius had been born who preached truth and love; who suffered because of his mission, but on account of his sufferings, the world has become better, if not saved.?
Suffering is at the heart of the Christian message (just as, to appropriate one final lesson from Rizal, common victimhood is at the core of his concept of national unity). And Christmas, despite the commercial and cinematic glamour it enjoys, despite its overwhelming ?Santa-Clausification,? is actually about something else altogether: Christ?s initiation into the human condition, his introduction to suffering. And ?on account of his sufferings, the world has become better, if not saved.?

What does this mean for the practicing Catholic, whose faith revolves around a newborn thrust into the elements and a grown man nailed high on a cross? It means looking at the horrifying events that shaped the year, and seeing Christ in their center?grieving, drowning, dying, suffering.