Holy Family’s exile points to people today fleeing from violence, poverty who also find that there is ‘no room in the inn’
By Bishop Mark Beckman
“The Adoration of the Shepherds” by Murillo, Bartolome Esteban. (OSV News photo/Bridgeman)
Of all the feasts celebrated by Christians, it seems Christmas has most captured the imagination of Western civilization. In recent centuries our world has become saturated with beautiful traditions surrounding “Santa Claus” or “jolly old St. Nick,” with Christmas trees and gift-giving, with Christmas lights and the sending of Christmas cards, and many others.
In the last century, an amazing variety of songs and carols, both secular and religious, have become part of our annual holiday tradition. Almost all of us can sing or hum along with these “classics” like “Jingle Bells,” “Frosty the Snowman,” “White Christmas,” “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” and so many more.
For us Catholic Christians, the deeper roots of Christmas take us back to the very beginnings rooted in the mystery of the birth of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Memories of childhoods attending Mass on the eve of Christmas, at midnight, or on Christmas Day remind us of the “reason for the season.”
I suspect most of us could do a fairly good job of summarizing the beautiful narrative of the birth of Jesus found in Luke’s Gospel, of the search to no avail for a “room in the inn,” and of Mary finally giving birth in a stable surrounded by animals.
Our memories carry vivid depictions of the Lord in a feeding trough wrapped in swaddling clothes and of the shepherds hearing the angelic message and coming to adore the Christ Child. Our Christmas cards, the tapestry of older religious hymns and of the art of Christian tradition, and especially the Nativity scenes or creches capture the imagination of that most holy night.
With the dawn of the pandemic, my former parish of St. Henry in Nashville instituted a most beautiful tradition of creating a living scene of first-century Bethlehem. In that first year, it was a spectacular drive-by scene that led to a traffic jam on all the surrounding roads. In later years, all of Bethlehem was re-created in a walk-through version that led to the stable scene. The Knights of Columbus were particularly fond of playing Roman soldiers and did so admirably well.
I suggested teasingly to Deacon Mike (the chief organizer of the event) that we might want to consider adding the scene of the “slaughter of the innocents” as depicted in the Gospel of Matthew’s infancy narrative. He would roll his eyes at my suggestion. But it is interesting to note how little of our memories of that first Christmas are rooted in the deeply disturbing darkness revealed in Matthew’s narrative.
How a secular power was so willing to invoke violence to kill the most vulnerable of his day in his efforts to cling to his own power. The follow-up narrative of the Holy Family having to flee their own country as refugees and escape to another country looks back to the exile of the Israelites in Egypt but sadly also points forward to the many people today fleeing from violence and poverty in our world who also often find “no room in the inn.” The Catholic Church preserves this dangerous memory every year with the feast of the Holy Innocents on Dec. 28.
For me it is the Gospel of Christmas Day from John that holds together the many elements of the Christmas mystery.
In bold proclamation, it is John’s Gospel that announces most poetically the great mystery of the Incarnation—that the Word who was forever with God and is God has become flesh and dwelt among us (literally pitched His tent.) God has taken on our humanity; God has His own “skin in the game”! There is no situation in our world, no human suffering and misery that anyone ever must suffer alone because God made flesh has embraced all time and history. We are never abandoned but embraced by love itself.
The Christmas mystery invites us all to put our “skin in the game”—to be so united with the Word made flesh that His love once more becomes embodied in us. It is we ourselves in our own time and place who must once more give “birth” to Christ.
As we celebrate Christmas this year, may we be so intimately united to Christ that we bear his light for all the world! Christmas blessings to you and your families in this most holy season.