Inevitably during the two-week Christmas vacation young boys and teenagers will start dyeing their black hair blond.  Or maybe I should say bright yellow.  Some dye their whole head of hair, others dye in stripes and still others yellow spots like polka dots.  Some others have long yellow strands of hair hanging from the back of their heads like tails.  The schools do not allow the children to dye their hair during the school year so vacations give them a chance to let loose, I suppose. 

I am not sure of the cultural significance of this phenomenon, but I also noticed that the young people in Japan also liked to dye their hair brown or blond.  They called themselves "Yankees".  Some of the teenagers here also tell me that they want to look like an American.   You could say that they are not content with their black hair which is like everyone else's here.  But that might be reading too much into it.  Sometimes I think these teenagers just want to add a little color and excitement to an otherwise rather drab and poor time during  Christmas and New Year vacation.

By the way, the dye is really, really cheap -- only about ten cents per pack which can dye five or six heads of hair.

  While I am writing this, forty families are waiting outside for a group of policeman to bring a bagful of groceries and two kilos of rice.  The other day Mayor Lim of Manila sent six hundred bags of groceries for our parishioners so they can celebrate "Noche Buena" or Christmas Eve with the usual meal consisting of spaghetti with tomato sauce, a loaf of bread, a can of spam or corn beef and maybe even some fruit.  The first time I was invited to a Noche Buena meal I almost cried thinking of all the turkey dinners I had eaten on Christmas.  For our people here this simple meal is a festive occasion and they enjoy it.  They of course are grateful if they can make it a little more festive with a few extra groceries which are donated to our parish.

  The sad thing is that there is never enough to go around to all the needy families.  We can only give to a fraction of the families.  The people who are lucky enough to receive the groceries are happy, but those who do not receive anything can become angry at us priests and jealous of their neighbors.  Unfortunately, these gifts, which were intended to bring joy at Christmas, can actually lead to dissensions in our very close-knit community between those who have a little and those who have even less.

  I remember that we could count about three hundred homeless people in the downtown area of Nagoya, Japan, where I worked for thirty years.  Before Christmas various groups would collect rice and other foods for these homeless.  With just about 300 we could manage to feed them quite well.  But what do you do when you have 30,000 people close to starvation in your parish?  Even truckloads of rice would not be enough to go around.  Bags of groceries at Christmas or other dole-outs are not the answer to institutionalized poverty.   Although gifts can bring Christmas joy to a few for a day, we need more radical solutions to alleviate poverty.  We followers of Jesus Christ have a lot of work to do before the Word of God can become Incarnate to all our brothers and sisters of the world.

  At this Christmas season may the Heart of Jesus live in the hearts of all.  Amen.

 

Ever since September people have been telling me that Christmas is near.  It is almost a type of greeting.  You can even hear people playing Christmas music beginning in September.  That is why it is said that the longest Christmas season is in the Philippines. 

People here call the months from September to December the "burrrrrr" months because they end in the sound "ber" or "burr".  This is also when it starts to get cold in Manila.  Instead of being around 100 degrees during the day it is only around 80 degrees!

Now it is getting so cold I need to cover myself with a sheet at night and close the windows to keep out the chilly winds.  Christmas is really near.

Next week on December 16 the Catholic Church in the Philippines begins "Simbang Gabi".  These are masses celebrated in the early morning around four or five o'clock.  Thousands of people participate in order to prepare for Christmas.

At these novena masses we priests are allowed to wear white vestments instead of the more somber purple of Advent.  Christmas songs are also sung.  From December 16 there is a festive atmosphere.  Advent is already over and the Christmas season is beginning.  As far as I know, the Philippines is the only country in the world that has such a liturgy. 

Anyway, Christmas is near-- really near.  Advanced Merry Christmas!!!

The pictures show the statue of Jesus the Scavenger which is kept in our parish church.  The other picture is of Lee-boy holding his kalahig or scavenger's hook and his garbage sack just like his Savior.