Mathoms, etc.

Great homily during the Christmas Day Mass yesterday. The priest told the story about Americans who worked with abused, traumatized orphans in Russia. I don't think he mentioned when this was, but I assume it was when the country was still under the Communists. But he read from a first-person account of one of the people there. The Americans sat all the kids down and told them the story of Christmas which, having been under the Communists for so long, they had never heard before. The children were riveted, and at the end, they separated them into groups to make their own manger/nativity scene with the barest of supplies. They used 3 pieces of cardboard for the manger, strips of paper to represent Jesus, and cloth to wrap the baby Jesus in that was taken from a nightgown donated by a more affluent Russian woman. As they went around the room helping the kids with the project, one noticed that one boy had two babies in the manger. So she got a translator and wanted to know what was going on.

The boy started to recount the Christmas story, but as he went along, he started to ad lib. He said he felt he sympathized with Jesus, because there was no room for him anywhere. He had no parents. He wanted to stay with Jesus, thinking that there would be nobody that could hurt him there. However, he felt bad because he didn't have any money to get Him a present like the three kings did. He asked Jesus if keeping Him warm would be enough of a gift. Jesus said yes. So the boy climbed into the manger with him. That's why there were two babies in it.

I saw a few women wipe tears from their eyes. I got teary-eyed myself. Some of the emotional impact may have diminished with MY retelling of the tale. But I hope the message of love and charity came through. Truth always comes from the mouths of babes.