□ Nguyễn Trung Tây, SVD
Chrstmas Story, A Love Story!



It was the Veteran Hospital in Long Beach of California that I attended the Clinical Pastoral Education course which lasted for ten weeks in 1997. As a CPE student, every morning I showed up in the Clinical Pastoral Education office at 8am, put on a Chaplain’s coat, had a brief meeting with my Chaplain supervisor, and then walked to the ward that I was assigned to for pastoral visits. Normally with every patient, when I entered their rooms, I simply introduced myself first; and depending on the situation, I might offer the patients a prayer, and, occasionally a blessing. In some cases, the patients shared with me the reasons that brought them to the hospital. I in turn, if asked by the patients, shared with them my own life; for instance, why I decided to leave everything behind for a missionary call, or where I originally came from… CPE is the course that is basically designed to help the students who will become clerics to be familiar with the hospital setting and, above all, learn how to provide pastoral care to the patients in both conditions: normal and critical. Most of the patients I met in the hospital, though being in the vulnerable stage, were pleasant and very strong in faith. Actually I learned from them a great deal about how to carry the cross faithfully and, if possible, joyfully, particularly when the journey of faith suddenly became a crooked road. I remember a patient in his early fifties who during the first visit appeared uncomfortable. He sat on his bed and kept looking down for most of the time. In the end, he reluctantly told me: “I am not a practising Catholic after an unpleasant encounter with the church...” I assured the guy that I was here not to judge anyone, but to be present among the patients and above all pray for them. During the second visit the guy appeared to feel more at ease. He closed his eyes and bowed his head while I was offering to God a prayer for him. The next time surprisingly as long as he saw me enter his room, the guy asked me if I could pray for him. He told me, as a way to explain his request, “Tomorrow I will face a major operation…”. After I finished the prayer for a blessing and successful operation, the man unexpectedly broke down in tears. I kept silence respecting the emotional moments while observing the tears rolling down his cheeks. The man finally opened his mouth to mumble the words: “I kept running away from God, but God never gives up on me.” “Really! God never gives up on me”. I repeated what he said. This time I felt like I was the one who received the spiritual food from the man to whom I was providing the pastoral care.

Christmas time might denote different meanings for different people. For some, Christmas day is a time for family and loved ones. For me, Christmas time is a moment that God in a simple and yet profoundly way shows to sinful human beings His unwavering determination not to give up on us, the Prodigal sons. In the garden, the woman and the man were willing to break up and thus run away from the heavenly bonding with God for a vacuous promise: “Eat, and you will know the good and the bad.” Yes, indeed, after eating the forbidden fruit, the woman and the man knew they were naked. Therefore, the first couple hid themselves in the bush. When God came to the garden for a daily visit, seeing no more the sight of His beloved, God asked, “Where are you?”.

The relationship between God and human beings through salvation history can be described as the Hide and Seek game. God always seeks, and human beings always run away and hide. However, the more human beings run away from God, the more God runs after the sinful human beings, because God never gives up on us. And eventually God took on human flesh to show to sinful human beings that no matter what we do, God always loves us with an unconditional love. That’s why the first Christmas took place in Bethlehem about two thousand years ago. A baby was born as a profound way God was saying to us: “No matter how sinful you are, I never give up on you, because I love you.”

Indeed the Christmas season is undoubtedly a time to celebrate God’s unwavering love, the love that will never die out though human beings continue to run away from heaven!

□ Nguyễn Trung Tây, SVD
www.nguyentrungtay.com