The Lantern In The Village Square – OpEd

(UCA News) -- When I celebrated my first Christmas in a remote Maratha tribal village, I learnt that light does not need electricity to shine. An elderly migrant worker named Amma Savitri taught me this when she placed a simple clay lamp in my hands and said, “Father, this is how we welcome Jesus — not with grand things, but with whatever burns in our hearts.”

That moment changed everything I thought I knew about Christmas.

Growing up, I imagined the priesthood would mean celebrating Christmas in magnificent cathedrals with towering Christmas trees and elaborate Nativity scenes. But God had different plans.

As a missionary of the Society of the Divine Word, I found myself serving migrant families in a rural Maratha tribal village, where Christmas arrives not with comfort but with the dust of sugarcane fields and the weariness of seasonal laborers.

Here, the celebration looks nothing like the Christmas cards of my childhood, yet it reveals something profound about the Incarnation that no amount of tinsel ever could.

These migrant families travel hundreds of kilometers each year, following the harvest seasons, living in temporary shelters made of plastic sheets and bamboo. They are modern-day wanderers, much like Mary and Joseph traveling to Bethlehem.

When I first arrived, I asked myself, 'How do you celebrate Christmas with people who have no permanent home, no stable address, and no place to store decorations from year to year?’ But they taught me that Christmas has never been about having a place — it is about making space.

In our village, Christmas preparation begins with something beautiful. The migrant children, whose schooling is often interrupted by their families’ movements, gather to create a Nativity scene using whatever materials they find — stones become shepherds, dried corncobs transform into animals, and a broken basket becomes the manger.

I watched a young girl named Rupali spend hours shaping baby Jesus from clay she dug near the village well. Her small fingers worked with such devotion that I remembered Christ’s words: “Let the little children come to me, for the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these.”

Their simplicity taught me that preparing for Christmas is not about perfect decorations but about making room in our hearts.

The village Christmas Mass begins at midnight, but people start gathering hours earlier. They come carrying homemade oil lamps called “diyas,” transforming the darkness into a river of light flowing toward our simple church.

There are no pews — everyone sits on worn mats spread across the floor. The Gospel reading from Luke chapter two takes on new meaning here: “She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.”

Among these displaced families who know rejection and homelessness intimately, I finally understood that Jesus did not come to the settled or to the secure — he came to those wandering, searching, hoping for home.

One memory stands above all others. Two years ago, heavy rains destroyed many of the migrant families’ temporary shelters just days before Christmas. I wondered how we could celebrate amid such suffering. But on Christmas Eve, something extraordinary happened.

The more established tribal families — themselves poor by any measure — opened their homes. Every family, no matter how small their dwelling, made room for migrants. We celebrated Mass in an open field under the stars because no building could hold us all, and the feast that emerged from shared contributions fed everyone with plenty left over.

It reminded me of the loaves and fishes, of God’s mysterious mathematics where sharing multiplies rather than divides.

This is what Christmas means to me as a missionary — witnessing Christ born again and again in the generosity of the displaced, in the faith of the wandering, and in communities that embody Mary’s Magnificat: “He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.”

As a missionary, I'm sent to carry Christ to others, but these Maratha tribal families and migrants have brought Christ to me in ways I never imagined.

We have a beautiful tradition now — after Mass, we share “gul-poli,” sweet flatbread made with jaggery, blessing it first as an offering to baby Jesus.

As I distribute this blessed food each Christmas morning, I think of how the Eucharist works the same way. Christ gives himself to us so we can become food for others, nourishment for a hungry world.

That first Christmas, Amma Savitri told me something else: “Father, we light lamps because Jesus said ‘I am the light of the world.’ But he also said, ‘You are the light of the world.’ So, we must keep burning, even when the wind blows hard.”

Her clay lamp has long since gone out, and Amma Savitri has moved on to another village, following another harvest. But her words remain, reminding me that Christmas isn’t one day — it is a lifetime of keeping the flame alive, even on the move.

This Christmas, wherever you are, whatever your circumstances, remember that Christ did not choose Bethlehem’s palace but its stable. He was born to wandering parents far from home.

He still chooses the humble places, the displaced hearts, and the temporary shelters where love dares to show up. Light your lamp, whatever that means for you, and let it burn. The world is waiting for the light only you can give.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

• The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of UCA News.