In the Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius encourages us to pray on the mysteries of the life of Christ. One such meditation encourages us to envision the Nativity scene in detail. We might imagine the scene of birth itself, for example, Jesus being swaddled in his blankets, or what the manger looks like.
But before we even get to that scene, Ignatius asks us to contemplate imaginatively how Joseph and Mary travelled. Ignatius says that Mary goes forth on an ass, with Joseph, a maid, and an ox, to Bethlehem. (Spiritual Exercises 111) In Luke’s Gospel (2:1–5) there is no mention of an ass, a maid, or an ox. But Ignatius’s cultural assumptions inform how he imagines the scene and how he writes about it in the Exercises. Indeed, the whole point of praying with the Gospel scenes—as opposed to, say, doing historical scholarship on them—is to make them our own. More precisely, we are inviting God into the scene to allow the Holy Spirit to make it our own. As we pray and loosen control over the scene and let it happen, God works with the realities of our lives as well as sacred Scripture to bring us closer.
My own crèche set on the mantle has Joseph, Mary, Jesus, sheep, shepherds, ox, and wise men, but there is no maid. Most of us do not have maids and so probably do not imagine one would be at the Nativity, the way that Ignatius did. However, our crèche has two unusual additions. When the kids were very small, at some point a child added a tiny plastic dinosaur to come and worship the Christ Child, and a later year, a small Gumby figure was added as well. We welcomed the additions, even though the figures were definitely not historical, because of the childlike sense that everyone would have wanted to see the Baby Jesus and because it was a way for the children to make the scene their own.
Those details of what it was like to travel to Bethlehem are well worth making our own too. After all, we are all travelers on the way of life, and while sometimes the path we take is joyful, at other times, not so much. Mary was with child, a joyful event, but she was also traveling a long way near the very end of her pregnancy. For many soon-to-be moms, the physical burdens become a bit heavier then. And Mary would not have been the only one feeling heavy while making the journey for the census. When a census took place, diseases were often spread, along with problems such as not enough housing for all the arriving travelers. Mary and Joseph were certainly not alone in needing shelter for the night.
Luke, as the Gospel writer, does not let us forget the bigger context into which Jesus was born: a world where his people would have been subjected to many powers beyond their control. We only need to read the news to see that we continue to live in a world of war and division, instead of peace and love. Even over the Christmas season, refugees in war zones are forced to flee danger where they live. The road is not easy travel for some people right now. More trivially, there are likely to be lines at the airport or train station or maybe just not enough room at the inn. Frustrated travelers, it seems, are nothing new. Yet I imagine that Mary and Joseph each in their own ways took these delays with patience. Or perhaps they were tired and frustrated, too, and supported each other on the journey.
It is worth pausing in Advent to pray over their time of travel and to let God into how we imagine that travel. It is worth pausing to imagine who else is on the road as we make our way from Advent toward Christmas. What does that road look like for us when we stop to imagine it unfolding? Who is with us on this road, along with Mary and Joseph and, of course, Jesus?
This story is not only a story from the past, nor only one that Ignatius made his own, but it’s also a story that is our own, whether we are traveling with those facing homelessness or a dinosaur aficionado. Let’s let God into our prayers, in whatever our lives look like right now, and see where that prayer journey takes us.
This lovely piece of yours is being read, just after I have put my own Crib, including Jesus in straw,and the golden, ornately decorated figures that make up the scene. I have had them, in a special silver-covered box for all the years since a former friend brought them to me from a business trip to South America.
How very strange that I should read this so soon after erecting the Crib. But then, the ways of God are indeed strange.
Thank you, Marina, for all your words.