I have before me a small child's swing, yellow and green, swaying empty and forlorn. For days now I have watched it with deep sorrow—for it makes me think of the countless unborn children, the millions of children dying of hunger in our impoverished world (one every three minutes), the parents who long for them but cannot have them, those who do not want them because the time is not right, those children who would give anything for a swing and instead are forced to play in garbage heaps, those who are beaten and abused.
And I think again of the birth of the Child we are about to celebrate (or have just celebrated) in a way that grows more and more shallow, further and further from what He came to teach us and to bring to us as good news.
And I think of Herod and the slaughter of the innocents—the first terrible consequence of that birth.
We—most of us—feel close to the shepherds, and each year we want to set out after them, companions on a journey distant in time yet drawn near to us by the emotion of Christmas, joined in solidarity for a single night.
Herod was wicked. That is what we tell ourselves, because we want to keep evil at arm's length, at least for this one night.
What does that Child's gaze—full of boundless love—seem to tell us as He looks upon us? Perhaps that look, which we imagine merciful and tender, calls us to search our own hearts deeply and stirs us not to stop, as we always do, at the emotional response that the Holy Night inspires in us. Perhaps He would have us understand that nearly all of us harbor a little of Herod within. We do not commit evil ourselves, but evil surrounds us and enters our homes now more than ever, leaving us shocked, disbelieving, disgusted—and also paralyzed. We make excuses: "What can I do? How can I prevent these terrible things from happening?"
And yet most of the time we remain passive. Not with words—the Child Jesus has no use for those—can we hold back the evil that rages against the small children who look at us with innocent eyes.
All of us, if we think carefully, can change something by going in silence to the cave. We are called to follow the light, not the darkness that still surrounds it. And that light will illuminate our hearts and show us how, beginning now, to turn inertia into concrete acts of presence, into "becoming neighbor"—by living more simply, freeing ourselves of the excess that is so vast compared to those dying of hunger; by genuinely welcoming those who seem foreign to us; by offering some of our time to young mothers in need; to children alone and abandoned in institutions; by regularly supporting organizations like GEMMA or others that work in the Third World.
Next year, as Christmas approaches, perhaps we can make our way to the stable in Bethlehem accompanied by these new friends who will guide us, for they know the path better than we do.
M. Bertolini, 2009