Here is a photograph of a masked religious sister praying in the cave within the empty church of the Nativity at Bethlehem. The usually pilgrim packed Bethlehem is vacated for a second year of Covid.
To enter the Church of the Nativity the visitor must bend low as the door is little more than child-size. Get it? One cannot approach the place of Christ's birth without becoming like a child — self-realistic — acknowledging how needy, dependent, fragile we are. Indeed the entire Nativity story is a story of fragility: Joseph and pregnant Mary having no place to stay, the marginalized shepherds being the first to hear good news, the terrible story of baby boys massacred out of Herod's jealousy. It's a story right for today, for our own time of awfulness — the awfulness of Covid, climate change, unending racial strife, political chaos. Darkness seems to be all around. And it is into this darkness that God is born at Bethlehem. Does the story, can the story give you hope?
God has emptied himself to be with us. The fourteen pointed star on the floor of the Bethlehem cave proposes that this is the exact spot where Jesus was born and where Mary and Joseph knelt. Why not? The star seems to invite us to come closer, to look, to touch, to kneel and pray from our own place of self-emptying. Can we take a few minutes out of this Christmas time to pray.
I imagine that if the nun pictured above saw each of us by the star she would pray for us. So pray for everyone you know. Pray for those who would love to pilgrim to Bethlehem but cannot, either because of traveling prohibitions these days, or because they are poor, elderly, frail, sick, bed-ridden. Pray for the world in all its tension and strife. Pray for the children. Pray that we would save our planet from self-destruction. Pray for the people who have the power to make life better for everyone but who fail in the partisan divide. Pray for the people who instill fear and doubt. Pray for the people who are making trouble these days — machinators.
And may we pray for ourselves. Lay down whatever wounded pride is in you, self-pity, hurt feelings, grudge holding, resentment. Lay down all the self-assuredness, the indifference, the take-a-back-seat attitude, the assessing of others, the complaining and blaming. Come to the Bethlehem cave emptied. Be aware only of your need and the desire for the emptiness to be filled with light and joy, compassion and love.
I pray with you
and send a blessing today.
May Christmas and the New Year
bring gifts of healing, strength and courage.
