Led Into the Truth O Little Town of Bethlehem

Jan 12, 2009

Et verbum caro factum est, et habitavit in nobis.  The people were arriving in droves, the priests and seminarians were hustling about making last-minute accommodations for the swelling crowds, which had burgeoned to the point that they were threatening to burst through the walls and spill haphazardly out into the street.  A light rain had begun to fall in Jerusalem, which by late December reaches a state of bitter, bone-chilling cold.  The atmosphere could not have been more inhospitable.  The Mass was being prepared in an auditorium instead of the chapel to accommodate the multitudes of people expected in this unusually crowded Christmas season.  Some groups had left in large buses for Bethlehem.  Bells all over the city were sounding the call, drawing the faithful to come and adore the Lord, the God made flesh and now dwelling among us, a helpless child in the City of David.  Jerusalem, the city of the Passion, was in this moment preparing to become a second Bethlehem for thousands of Christians, huddled in the cold to catch a glimpse of their swaddled savior.  The Mass of Midnight commenced; the Word was made to dwell among us, and for this night, Jerusalem knew the peace of Christ.

 

On Christmas morning, I rose early to greet the Lord in the chapel at the Pontifical Notre Dame Institute in Jerusalem, an extraordinary pilgrim center owned by the Vatican and operated by the Legionaries of Christ.  After greeting our Lord, I bundled up in my coat to head to Bethlehem, a short drive from Jerusalem.  In my mind was the passage I had read just before leaving the chapel, spoken by the shepherds who had been visited by that glorious angel as they tended their flocks on that singular night some 2000 years ago: “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us” (Lk 2:15).  Let us go, indeed!  Pilgrims from all over the world filled the ancient Basilica of the Nativity, each lining up and waiting sometimes hours for the chance to kiss the spot where Jesus was born and to kneel at the site of the manger where the infant Savior slept. 

 

I led the procession for Mass.  We descended the steep steps into the tiny grotto, the pilgrims showing respect for the mysteries about to be celebrated by shuffling out of the way as best as they could.  We entered the small sunken chapel that is built around the spot where the manger of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh and dwelling among us, the Shepherd King of Israel, the Lamb of God, would have been.  The walls of the cave, a cave for livestock, are soot-black from centuries of burning candles and incense.  The decorations are minimal, but there in front of us was the spot, the very place where the Almighty God entered the world a helpless child, completely powerless and completely dependent on the very people he had come to save, made such by the Father for us, that we might be called along with this baby Jesus sons of the Father.

 

The Mass began; Latin prayers and chants echoed throughout the Basilica; the low hum of noise in the grotto hushed, and those who had come following the star watched the Lord’s Passion, Death, and Resurrection play out before them in the greatest drama of human existence.  Never before did the Gloria in excelsis Deo have more meaning!  One could almost see the tiny baby Jesus, the Agnus Dei, in his infant form as he was broken before us.  After communion, the realization that we had just received our Lord, his true body, blood, soul, and divinity, the same flesh born of the Virgin Mary in this very place, who was visited by the lowly shepherds and the great Magi, broke over us like the sunrise erupting over Mount Nebo.  And we, like Moses so many centuries before, saw the Promised Land: the Kingdom of Christ, which had at that moment been incarnated in us as we knelt in a dark cave in war-torn Bethlehem, loving our God who first loved us. 

 

I was asked by my friends at the Catholic News Agency to begin writing this column.  I am a seminarian for the Archdiocese of Atlanta in the United States studying at the North American College in Rome.  I had the opportunity to spend Christmas in the Holy Land with the priests and the brothers at the Notre Dame Center in Jerusalem.  This column is intended to present the life of a seminarian on his way to Holy Orders.  My path has brought me this Christmas to Jerusalem.  Only God knows what the future holds.  This Christmas seemed like an opportune moment to begin this endeavor, for to visit the Holy Land is to see just how real Christ truly is, to see the places where the events transpired, to touch them, to pray in them, to become a part of their history. 

 

As we finished Mass, a chorus of Adeste Fidelis broke out among the people, many of whom had tears in their eyes.  The people began to penetrate the small recess where we had celebrated Mass.  An exhausted guard tried to hush the faithful and to let the priests out of the chapel.  But on this day, there would be no end to the singing, because the source and summit of all joy had come into the world.  The chorus venite adoremus, Domine, brought tears to all, myself included.  The priest reached over to the guard who was desperate to keep order in the grotto and calmly reassured him: “God himself could not stop their singing today.”  As he shuffled through the crowd of pilgrims who had streams of joy flowing down their cheeks, he looked back to the exasperated guard: “Nor would he possibly want to.”

 

Merry Christmas.