Merry Christmas, my friends!
I pray that these days of celebrating the birth of our Savior fills you with the tender joy of knowing you are held in the loving hands of God in each and every moment of your day.
Reflecting on and praying with that Christmas scene which took place where the animals were kept because “there was no room for them in the inn” led me to remember some similar places I had experienced in my youth. A number of relatives on both sides of my family were farmers. The six of us were often packed in the car to go for long visits, occasionally even spending the night. I think my mother thought it was a good experience for us to get up with our cousins early in the morning and milk cows or help feed cattle and hogs or collect eggs from the hen house.
In the winter, it was deeply dark and cold when our cousins would lead us from the warm farm house through the snowy yard to the barn where the livestock were huddled protected from the north wind. Inside the barn was another world to us city kids. In contrast to the cold and dark outside, we were in a place of warmth and light. The warmth did not come from a heater but from the bodies and breaths of the animals themselves. The odors of hay and urine and animal hide filled the air. The sounds of shuffling, lowing and the unexpected displeasure when one animal got too close to another opened our ears to a world that was alive and not in our control. It always seemed to be a crowded space inside even when the barn looked so big on the outside. The animals were so close to us and we had to watch to make sure we were not stepped on. I think the animals were curious about us city kids who stared at them in awe and were afraid to touch them, for they would, in unison, look at us with wide eyes, heads up and waiting for our next move. Sometimes we would even be there when a calf was born or after a sow had given birth to a litter of baby pigs.
At the time, I do not think I ever imagined Jesus being born in such a place. But now I know that it was into just such a place that Jesus entered our world two millennia ago. In the frozen night air, he was born surrounded by animal debris and warm clouds of animal breath. What thoughts must have run through Mary and Joseph’s minds as they swaddled him and laid him in the feeding trough. Were there women present to help Mary or did Joseph have to help Mary alone?
What I see in my prayer now as I remember the animal packed barn is that God was made flesh. God became human. God entered into our world in poverty. Surrounded by animals created by God’s own hands, God was wrapped to keep warm and laid in the softest place in the barn, the manger. God chose to truly be like us in the midst of all our sufferings and our joys. This little baby, born among the livestock, should not frighten anyone. Rather we should be tempted to hold the baby and offer him a place in our hearts. Join me then in praying the old song that rejoices in Jesus’ poverty:
Away in a manger, no crib for a bed
The little Lord Jesus lay down his sweet head
The stars in the sky looked down where he lay,
the little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay.
The cattle are lowing, the poor baby wakes,
but little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes;
I love thee, Lord Jesus, look down from the sky
and stay by my cradle till morning is nigh.
Peace,
Fr. Damian