Making room in our own 'inn' this Christmas
Br Peter Carroll FMS
Dear Friends
Christians and millions of others around the world know the story of the first Christmas. However, one part can easily be neglected. That Jesus was born in a manger, we know - but why? And the answer is instructive: there was no room at the Inn for him.
Does our world have room for Jesus – the Jesus who is the Word of life, rather than the baby in the crib? It’s easy to find an innocent baby and the story of his birth attractive, especially when it’s wrapped in the gloss of tinsel and trees, Santa and gifts, beautiful scenes and calming music. By contrast, all that flows from Jesus’ incarnation is challenging and calls for a set of responses that by any reckoning aren’t easy. Perennially, there is no room at the Inn, no place to welcome the God who wants to be born there.
Original artwork by Kirk Richards (www.jkirkrichards.com).
Thomas Merton put it this way:
Into this world, this demented inn
in which there is absolutely no room for him at all, Christ comes uninvited.
But because he cannot be at home in it, because he is out of place in it,
and yet he must be in it,
His place is with the others for whom there is no room.
His place is with those who do not belong, who are rejected by power, because they are regarded as weak,
those who are discredited, who are denied status of persons, who are tortured, bombed and exterminated.
With those for whom there is no room,
Christ is present in this world.
Merton wrote these words over 50 years ago. Little has changed – at least in the sense that society is no more receptive now than it was then to a Jesus who challenges, and takes the side of the least, lost and last. Maybe it never is.
The God who’s born into our world at Christmas (and in fact, every day) is always being born into a world that doesn’t have room for him. The message to our culture is clear. The poor more easily make a place for God in their lives. Their stables and mangers are more available for God’s birth than are our homes, McMansions, boardrooms, social media or any media.
And if society generally doesn’t have room for Jesus, or at least only for one day each year, are we any different? Is there room for Jesus in my life? Do I make room for Jesus? We can easily put up the barriers, close the shutters, put on our ‘out-of-office’ messages, and flick the sign on the door to ‘closed’.
Where else is Jesus to be born today, if not in our own lives? Our own “inn”, our inner lives, need to be cleaned out and space made for Christ. It is a task that we must engage in every day, because every day we tend to fill ourselves with activities and purchases, and clutter our lives with so much material. We need to make room for the Saviour to be born again and again.
We know that the ‘wise men’ followed the star to find Jesus. We need our own guiding star to take us to today’s manger, where we will find he whom we desire and seek.
May you, your loved ones and communities be blessed abundantly this Advent and Christmas as you set out to follow the Star to Jesus.
Br Peter Carroll FMS
President, Catholic Religious Australia