Recently I heard the story of a Syrian refugee woman who had fled her war-torn country, and with much difficulty crossed Turkey and Greece, where she boarded a huge train with a thousand other refugees in North Macedonia to travel to the Serbian border. All of this happening of course in the midst of a pandemic. She had left her country at the beginning of a pregnancy with almost nothing and as she was on the train she went into labor. Imagine this, in a crowded train with a thousand strangers she begins to feel birth pangs. Fortunately, the train arrived at the border in time for her to be taken to a small clinic that Catholic Relief Services had set up to help refugees on the way north. CRS is the agency of the US Catholic Church for overseas relief and development. They have been helping thousands of refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and other strife-filled countries for some years now. Along the way, the migrants have often faced hostility and rejection in the countries they traveled through. She was welcomed at the clinic and had a safe delivery.
Christ is born.
The story in Luke’s gospel read at Midnight Mass is of Joseph and Mary desperate for a place to welcome the birth. They were migrants too, far from their home village, in the midst of many strangers. The gospel tells us they are a poor family on a long journey with much uncertainty as to how they will manage. They experience rejection over and over as no one will give them a room. It must have been a huge crisis for this young couple. Imagine the stress level!
Then, the baby is born. The gospel does not talk about a stable, just a manger, which was where animals were fed. Jesus, the Bread of Life, food for our own journey, lies in a food trough. No one saw this coming.
Luke’s emphasis is on the poverty and simplicity of the birth and life of Jesus. Poor towns are the key locations in the story, like Nazareth and Bethlehem, not Jerusalem. The parents are poor. The first to hear the news are poor shepherds, considered the outcasts of society. Jesus is a spiritual not a political king as most Jews imagined the Messiah. He comes for the rejected, those on the margins. From Mary’s womb Jesus is also rejected as we commemorate in Las Posadas. Jesus’ self-proclaimed job description will be, “I have come to bring good news to the poor.” The Christmas story tells us clearly that the poor are the first recipients of salvation. The whole narrative is not what anyone thought would happen.
We have all been poor this year. Few thought the world was in for a pandemic when 2020 began. In one way it has not spared anyone. We have all, rich and poor, been affected. It has made us all poor together. Many things are out of our control and this is so difficult. We feel vulnerable. Yes, the rich have not been affected as negatively as others, but all have suffered uncertainty, fear, and life changes we can not control. These kinds of things usually happen to the poor all the time, pandemic or not. When they happen to us all we begin to better see how others live every day.
It is through the eyes and experiences of the poor that we are saved. We are all poor in the sense we share one small vulnerable planet. We are understanding that more than ever this year. Climate change seems to be affecting all parts of the earth in different ways. Storms are more frequent and stronger. Artic ice is melting faster. Deserts are expanding. The years are warmer.
We are getting a perspective of the limited resources we have. For the pandemic, the vaccines are coming but will take months and globally years before all are reached. There is a poverty in the moment we all share now. Yet, all of us need to understand that it is from our poverty that we find Jesus the most clearly, because less things get in the way.
We are all poor. When we identify with those who have less we can then begin to understand and respond. Not just less money, things or resources, but less health, less relationships, less opportunities to participate in society. Less. Yet, from our poverty we give more. I have always seen that in the poor areas of San Antonio and the poorest places in the world I have visited with CRS. The poor give a much larger percentage of what they have to family, to others in need, and to charity. Less becomes more in Jesus.
The first part of the nativity story in Luke is simply the reality of what happened, the place, time, and who was in power. The second part is the significance of the event. Again Luke is not writing for historical purposes but rather religious purposes. The angel speaks to the shepherds, but not to Mary at this point. Mary could have used an angel’s help as her birth pangs grew sharper and there was no place where she could give birth, but really she was one angel short. Isn’t that true for us at many desperate moments of life? We are always one angel short, which is where faith comes in. Mary is left to think about this in her heart.
Jesus was born to die. All the signs from the beginning, the rejection of Joseph and Mary, being placed with animals, vulnerability, the poverty, the shepherds, the outcasts coming first. The story gets more desperate. Some days later the family has to flee to escape Herod’s murdering intention and they become refugees in Egypt. Later they lose Jesus in the temple. It is not exactly a reassuring start to the life of the Savior of the World. Think about that as you stare at those peaceful beautiful nativity scenes.
So, Jesus is not just one of us as a human being, but he shares in all our struggles, all the contradictions of life, the poverty, the rejection, the massive family problems. Yet at same time Luke sets the stage for a world-shattering event by putting the birth in context of the Roman empire. Jesus is the Savior, not the emperor. The angels announce him as savior, which was a title reserved to the emperor. A revolution is happening.
There was another story in the paper similar to the Syrian refugee mother that happened last month here on the Texas border. A pregnant Honduran woman walked alone in the South Texas brush after being pushed across the border by smugglers in a tire. Her labor pangs became intense and she fell down screaming. Border patrol agents found her and helped deliver the baby girl on the spot. She was taken to a hospital and later mother and newborn were turned over to Catholic Charities of the Brownsville Diocese. I was struck by the desperation of a woman who risked her life and that of her baby. Another mother, another birth under duress.
Christ is born.
Christmas gives us perspective: it is not about the gifts, it is about seeing things differently at the end of a year, seeing people differently, seeing ourselves differently. And what a year we have had! Seeing God differently in a baby, in poverty, in the rejected and in the sick with Covid. As we see ourselves differently in the perspective of this small poor child we have hope for the future.
It is a small and vulnerable planet. We are so small in the grand scheme of things. Maybe this Christmas, as difficult as it might be for many because of the pandemic, is an opportunity to learn the lessons of poverty from a small poor child in a food trough for animals. That birth of a small poor child repeats itself today in so many ways and in so many places. We also, imitating Jesus, can be food for others both physically and spiritually this year.
Touch your poverty, recognize Jesus, and be food for others by sharing him. Tell the story. Christ is born.
Fr. David Garcia is a retired priest from the Archdiocese of San Antonio, Texas, where he served for 44 years. During that time, Fr. Garcia was instrumental in the effort to have the Old Spanish Missions recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and also oversaw the multimillion-dollar restoration of San Fernando Cathedral. Fr. David served as pastor for several parishes in San Antonio, including the historic Mission Concepción. He also served as Senior Advisor for Clergy Outreach at Catholic Relief Services, the official international humanitarian and relief agency of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.