Advent Christmas Reflection 2025

At an American Catholic Parish, there is a tradition of displaying an outdoor creche near the church entrance. It features all the expected symbols and characters. This year, the creche is set up as usual, but the statues of Jesus, Mary and Joseph are missing. Instead, there is a sign displayed where they usually appear. It says: “ICE was here.” This is a shocking and poignant reminder of some of the harsh realities faced by families in these times and it raises many questions. (As of this posting, the Archdiocese has requested that the parish remove the sign and restore the Nativity scene, citing its purpose “to foster faith and devotion.)

Embedded in the Christmas story are also some challenging details. Mary, nine months
pregnant, is required to travel with Joseph from Nazareth to Bethlehem for a census conducted by the occupying Roman empire (a journey of about 150km on a mountainous dirt road via a donkey). This young couple, about to deliver their baby, are without accommodation and forced to take shelter in a stable. Shortly after the birth, they flee because of a threat made on the child’s life and find refuge in a neighbouring country. This refugee family with a newborn is now displaced from their home and community and will remain so until it is safe to return home. These details resonate so clearly with the experience of many women, children, and men around the world today. War, economic corruption, political oppression, foreign aggression, famine, and climate disaster all have contributed to the conditions that make “staying at home” dangerous, even though the prospect of leaving for someplace new is equally hazardous, filled with uncertainty and isolation.
​
It’s hard to think about these realities because they disturb our sense of “comfort and joy”, the serenity of the Christmas “scene” that we revel in during this season of celebration. The “Jesus, Mary and Joseph” we are used to seeing seem to be missing. What we so often don’t realize is that embedded in these realities are the very signs of “God with us”.
My first reaction to the missing figures was one of shock, not at the message itself so much as at its implications. It seemed to imply that God is not among us, that Mary has not brought the Christ into the world, and that we are desperately alone. The more I have thought about it, the more I realize this is not it at all. This desperate scene, indeed the entire story of Jesus’ birth, calls all of us to look for him more deeply, in the places we do not usually seek or find him, in the unusual and unlikely places, among the very ones who are displaced, disenfranchised, disregarded, and disowned.
Our mangers have become too neat and clean; our mangers should be what they are – smelly, saliva-encrusted, mushy feed troughs for the animals. Places of nourishment for those taken for granted. And, in the midst of all this is Jesus – wrapped in white cloth, sparkling and fresh, there to nourish and comfort all who recognize him, “bread for the world”. Is it any surprise that the very word Bethlehem translates “House of Bread?”

My hope for all of us this Christmas is that we will be disturbed by the pictures and sounds of our suffering world, enough to search more deeply, more penetratingly, to find the newly-born Christ in the unexpected, uncomfortable places, the places we would rather not go. As numerous spiritual writers have declared over many years: “May the peace of Christ disturb you.”  To this prayer let’s all say, “Amen.” Merry Christmas!

Michael Nasello
​Director, Passionist Solidarity Network