The star of Christmas, a beacon of hope – but is my ‘parol’ bright enough?

I have brightly-colored parol that hang proudly in our house, all made of native materials and carefully handmade by the entrepreneurs of Gumaca, Quezon. Mindful of the pandemic, my husband and I were more determined to hang lights and parol during this Christmas season. It was our way of saying, “COVID-19, keep out!”

It is common to see parol in Filipino houses. Once, while I was traveling in Victoria, Canada, my Filipino-Canadian friends who accompanied me got lost and could not locate the house of an auntie we were planning to visit for the first time. We got so enchanted by the colors of Fall that we missed the instructions from Waze. But though we missed Waze, we could not miss the big, capiz-made parol with blinking lights hanging by a window. “There! That must be the house! Look at the parol!”

That search for the house of our relative in a foreign land reminded me of the first Christmas when wise men from the East traveled to a far land to look for the baby Jesus. According to the biblical account, they saw “his star when it rose” and “they searched for the baby to worship him.” I wonder if “parol” have become so common during the season that we have taken for granted what it truly symbolized more than 2,000 years ago. The parol should remind us of the star that led the wise men to travel miles to a foreign land to search for Jesus and to worship Him.

Perhaps, the extended lockdown has made us stare at our bleak situation that we have forgotten to gaze at the stars above us. Some of us are still shocked and saddened by the passing of a friend, a relative, a loved one. This Christmas season, it is not easy to look up when our eyes are blurred by tears… when there is an empty chair at the dinner table. It is not only COVID-19 and its repercussions on the economy that have dampened our spirits. The killing of lawyers, doctors, and, more recently, a mother and her son she was trying to protect, have sickened us and made us feel that all around us is darkness and we are being swallowed by it. We are in agony.

The parol should remind us of the original star that brought hope to a world that was also threatened by the murderous plot of King Herod. A master of deception, King Herod asked the wise men to tell him when they find the baby so that he, too, could worship him. When the wise men did not heed Herod’s request, he ordered the mass murder of all male babies two years old and below. I could imagine the wailing of mothers, just like Aling Sonya’s cries as she tried to protect her son. It was a dark moment in Israel’s history.

In this dark and difficult period, let us take time to gaze at the parol, a symbol of hope. But the parol that we hang are not enough. We need people who will serve as parol. And I need to be a parol, too. I wonder though—is my parol bright enough to pierce through the darkness of our times? I need fellow parol to brighten the sky once more. Together, we can build a community of parol so that many more people could greet every new day with joy. We can experience once again the “thrill of hope” that seems to be dissipating.

Let us all turn ourselves into a multitude of parol to turn this weary world into great rejoicing!

LEONORA AQUINO-GONZALES
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