Interpreting Christ’s Love That Moves Brotherhood in the Christmas Celebration of FISIPOL UGM

Yogyakarta, January 13th 2022─Christmas and New Year’s Day may have passed, but the spirit to keep their love will never be extinguished. This was the background behind the implementation of the Christmas Celebration of FISIPOL UGM on Thursday (13/1). Different from previous years, the Christmas celebration entitled “The Love of Christ That Moves Brotherhood” was held in a hybrid way—a combination of offline for the organizers and some performers, and online for the event participants.

According to the title, the Christmas Celebration of FISIPOL UGM is not only a religious celebration. Moreover, there are also social values that include kinship and diversity within the faculty, as stated by Wawan Mas’udi as the Dean of FISIPOL UGM in his speech. These values are clearly reflected in the people involved in the implementation of this year’s Christmas Celebration of FISIPOL UGM; both the committee and the participants also involved non-Christian academics.

The point “The Love of Christ That Moves Brotherhood” is further elaborated in the presentation of the Christmas lesson by Father Alip Suwito, Pr, which is taken from the Gospel of Luke Chapter 2 Verse 15-20. Father Alip emphasized the 3S principles to create a life that is rich in the wisdom of Christmas: faithful, grateful, and sorry. By applying these 3S principles in everyday life, Christmas values will not just pass by in human life. In order to make the material presented more memorable and easier to understand, Father Alip also closed the Christmas Wisdom session with a story full of humanity values.

The spirit full of joy radiated throughout the event. Starting from the lighting of candles represented by educators and retired staff of FISIPOL UGM at the beginning of the event, entertainment in the form of musical performances from the academic community of PSdK, PMK, and GEO FISIPOL UGM, to the distribution of prizes, all were enjoyed with joy by the participants who were members of Zoom Meeting platform.

The event, which was hosted by Anin and Damar, was more solemn with prayer reading sessions at the beginning and end of the event led by A. G. Subarsono. Even though it was carried out in a hybrid way, the participants who joined the activity entirely online—including those who watched the FISIPOL UGM Youtube live broadcast, still showed their solemnity and high enthusiasm until the end of the event.