My Christmas Reflection

A few nights ago, I had the opportunity to understand what the first Christmas was like from a different perspective.  We had been participating in Posadas through the parish.  It´s a really cool tradition that they do here, along with most of the rest of Latin America for the nine nights before Christmas.  Two people dress up as Mary and Joseph and they walk through the streets with a group of people singing Christmas carols until they find refuge at a home.  Once they get there they are welcomed by the family and a reflection is provided and food is shared. 

Last Thursday, the people who were supposed to be Mary and Joseph ended up having something come up and somehow at the last moment I was asked to be Mary.  So I stuffed a stuffed animal under my shirt and put on a blue sheet and we started on our way to the first house.  So here I was, unexpectedly having had this responsibility somewhat thrust upon me, already completely exhausted after a long day, making my way on foot to Bethlehem.  It was a very long walk to the first house, and we already had a late start, so it was pretty late by the time we got there, but the family that lived there was very welcoming.  We sang a few songs and listened to a reflection on the Annnciation story led by my community mate Greg.  He talked about the uncertainty Mary must have felt when she was approached by the angel, but how in the end she had the faith to go throught with God´s plan for her, no matter how scary it was or how unworthy she felt.  He challenged us to be strong and faith like Mary this Christmas season. 

After some food we continued on our way.  I didn´t know it until then, but the next house was literally all the way across town, and it was already late and we had walked a long ways already.  I had absolutely no energy left and I just wanted to go home, but giving up at this point was really not an option.  So we trekked all the way across Monte Sinaí again.  My feet hurt and the sheet wasn´t staying on my head well and it was so hot out and I was hungry and I just wanted to go home.  The second house welcomed us and we sang more songs and Greg did another reflection similar to the last one.  As I sat there wishing I could just go home, but at the same time appreciating the hospitality of the family who had welcomed us into their home and listened to the reflection, I realized that I understood the Christmas story from a different perspective after this experience.  Mary was just a girl who was asked out of nowhere to do something that she didn´t ask for and that wasn´t easy, but she said yes.  And as much as we sing about and talk about what a beautiful, peaceful, holy, silent night that firsty Christmas was, that probably wasn´t how Mary would have characterized it at the time.  She was nine months pregnant and sitting on a donkey all the way to Bethlehem.  She probably wanted nothing more than to just go home to Nazareth and sleep in her own bed.  But no matter how exhausting and frustrating that night may have been for her, it was also a beautiful, peaceful, holy, silent night for the world because that was the night that God came into our world in the form of a baby boy. 

Sometimes we have to go through the ugly and the exhausting and the crazy to get to the beautiful, and sometimes we may wonder ¨why me¨and just want to go home and have a good meal and go to bed, but if I´ve learned anything in my time in Ecuador so far, it´s that you just have to have the faith to say yes and work through all the difficult stuff until something beautiful comes out of it.  I´m sure that Mary would agree with me on that one, because the baby that was born on that first Christmas night went on to do some pretty amazing things.

Merry Christmas on behalf of the volunteers of Rostro de Cristo
Monte Sinaí, Ecuador 2012
From left to right: Colleen, Heidi, Mike, Greg, Ana, and Jimmy