Scripture:
Acts 6:8-10; 7:54-59
Matthew 10:17-22
Reflection:
Preparing our home for Christmas includes arranging a nativity set that my grandfather made. He took up pottery in his retirement and made a nativity set for each of his three daughters, my mother included. The one we have was his gift to his youngest daughter, my aunt.
I like sitting near that manger scene. It helps me pray. I was introduced many years ago to the practice of imaginative prayer while making the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. He asks you, the one praying, to put yourself into a scene. Where is it? What do you smell and see? Who’s there? What’s happening? And, most important, where are you in the scene? Once you enter the scene, you begin to have an ordinary conversation with one or more of those “present.” Let it play out and trust in the Holy Spirit to give you the graces you need.
Back to my grandfather’s nativity set. There are the requisite characters…Mary, Joseph, the Child Jesus, shepherds with their animals, and the Three Kings. Interesting that he also included the innkeeper. But even more interesting is that there is no maidservant or midwife. The gospels do not say there was someone there to help Mary during her delivery, but we assume so since it is very likely Joseph was not going to be all that helpful. In the Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius has you imagine Mary, Joseph, and a servant girl setting forth from Nazareth to go to Bethlehem. He encourages the one making the Exercises “to see Our Lady, Joseph, the maidservant, and the infant Jesus after his birth.”
What did the maidservant experience? What does her experience of helping Mary during childbirth tell us about what we might do to help bring Jesus into the world? As I place myself in the scene in those precious days that follow the birth of any child, I am drawn to that midwife who is there trying to make things easier for this young family. I talk to her about what she sees. What stories would she tell afterwards, like the shepherds did when they returned to their fields? They all must have experienced something special, but its significance would need to play itself out over time. For now, though, it is simply enough to be there in that moment.
Robert Hotz is a consultant with American City Bureau, Inc. and was the Director of The Passion of Christ: The Love That Compels Campaign for Holy Cross Province.