Christmas 2009 Experience.
This Christmas I made a choice to stay back in Johore Bahru alone. My family lives in Seremban which is about 300km north from JB. The choice I have made is not as great as the choice God made i.e. to take himself our human nature. " Though he was in the form of God, Jesus did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. He emptied himself taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men" (Phil 2). It was a great spiritual experience for me here in JB this Christmas and my heart and prayers goes all out to all those who are far away from 'HOME' during the Christmas and New Year celebrations. 
At mass on Christmas eve, I was reflecting on the 'strangers' at Bethlehem; the Holy Family - they were far away from their family members and relatives, they had no place in the inn and I believe they were not familiar of the place, the crowd at Bethlehem who came for the census, the shepherds - who had a low status in the society at that time and the 3 Wise Men (highly respected group of people). But what interest me was the commonality of the last two strangers I mentioned above. They came to worship the new born King. And that was the same theme for the people at the midnight mass. The community gathered at mass that night; i.e. the outcast, the respected group, sinners, saints, the immigrants being legal or illegal , parishioners, etc whom in this article i would like to call the 'strangers' have all come to worship the new born King - Jesus Christ and thus making us no strangers but one common people, that is, His people.
