Celebrating Christmas is more than repeating a calendar of affections. It is a reminder that the founding story of Christianity does not begin under the shelter of power, but in the fragility of a family on the run — threatened by violence and saved by flight. In the Gospel of Matthew, the birth of Jesus is told without ornament: warning dreams, a guiding star, a ruler who persecutes, and a family that crosses borders to survive.

There is no sentimentality in this opening scene. Joseph wakes in the middle of the night; Mary carries her newborn child; the road leads to Egypt — a foreign land, burdened with the ambiguous memory of refuge and exile. Before any public word is spoken, the Messiah knows fear, displacement and dependence on the mercy of others. The Nativity, in this sense, is not a devotional accessory. It is a quiet manifesto about where hope chooses to be born.

Matthew deliberately links this journey to ancient promises. By invoking prophecy, he asserts that messianic identity is not forged in palaces, but on the road; not imposed by force, but preserved by the courage to leave. Power responds with violence — the massacre of the innocents reveals the naked face of political paranoia — while life responds with movement and care. Salvation, here, is not conquest. It is protection.

This reading casts an uncomfortable light on the present. Never have there been so many forcibly displaced people in the world, and rarely have they been met with such suspicion. Governments that should protect erect walls, criminalize crossings and normalize exclusion. Societies that celebrate the peace of Christmas tolerate — and sometimes applaud — policies that turn the request for shelter into a threat, and the foreigner into a problem.

Against this moral inversion, the Christmas message remains both current and unsettling. As Pope Francis has repeatedly reminded us, welcoming the refugee is not a rhetorical gesture of compassion, but an ethical measure of the authenticity of faith and public life. The Holy Family would hardly meet today’s migration filters. They would have no visas, no guarantees, no acceptable narrative. And yet it is in them that Christianity locates its origin.

To celebrate Christmas, then, is to recognize that God enters history on the side of the vulnerable. It is to affirm that human dignity precedes borders, documents and speeches. The star that guides foreigners does not legitimize privilege; it unsettles certainties and calls for hospitality. Christian Christmas does not separate faith from the world — it confronts both on the ground of reality.

At a time when the word “refugee” is reduced to a statistic or political noise, Christmas restores names, faces and paths. The Holy Family does not ask for applause; it asks for passage. It does not claim exceptions; it asks for shelter. And in doing so, it teaches that the peace celebrated at the table is born from recognizing the other — especially when the other arrives tired, afraid, asking only to stay.

To celebrate Christmas, finally, is to choose that side of history. It is to light candles not to conceal shadows, but to illuminate paths. It is to affirm, with sobriety and hope, that life deserves protection — always — and that no faith, no government and no society can endure if it does not know how to open the door.

Palmarí H. de Lucena