December 1, 2008

Advent meditation

Friends,

According to its constitution, Argentina is Roman Catholic, although the country’s officials may or may not be in agreement with the politics or the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. The Argentine people are not necessarily Roman Catholic, and yet there are many elements of the Catholic faith that are made manifest in the day-to-day culture of the Argentines. For example, many Argentines demonstrate a very important respect and veneration for the Virgin Mary.

I would like think about the importance of Mary, the mother of Jesus in the Christmas season.

There would be no Christmas without Mary. There is no birthing without a mother. God chose to take on human flesh and to walk through human life through the means of a humble and very special and particular woman, Mary of Nazareth. God charged Joseph, Mary’s promised spouse, with the difficult task of caring for her and for her baby, whom Joseph helped to raise and protect as a stepfather.

Mary was a young woman, without protection for being pregnant before marriage. By Jewish law, she deserved to be stoned to death. She also lived in a dangerous time, under the violence of the Roman Empire—an empire that did not recognize the human rights of Jewish peasant women. The son that was to be born to her had no possibility, legally speaking, for advancing in life. He would have no legal father and therefore no legal protection of his rights. All of the die were cast so that Mary and her baby would be only another small addition to the deplorable statistic of maltreatment by violence and poverty in an empire that caused violence and poverty.

Joseph, in spite of the indications of the law, undertook legal responsibility of both the young woman and her baby. But Joseph did much more than just take on the legal responsibility for this small family, he risked his own life to protect, care for, and love this woman and this child. He did everything possible so that they should receive the best treatment possible in the midst of the unbelief, prejudice, and violence that surrounded them.

This is a family model that is not seen much, even in a supposedly Catholic country where the veneration of this Holy Family is of such high religious importance. Without a doubt, there are many families—Catholic, Jewish, Evangelical, and other—that understand the importance of fighting for the rights of their families and that try to treat their family members well in spite of the constant stress of everyday life. But it seems to me that there are few who risk themselves for the rights of the unprotected, as did Joseph (see Matthew 1:19, 24). There are few women who sing Mary’s song with hope (Luke 1:50-53).

There are many women, children, and youth who live with abuse and do not know how to stop it. In fact, many women have surrendered to abuse and don’t even dream of better treatment. There are too many children in our neighborhoods who do not know anything other than maltreatment, abuse, and violence (or in other cases, physical or emotional neglect and abandonment).

What Christmas and the special relationship of the Holy Family teach us is that God wants the best treatment possible for all children, and God demands that pregnant women and women with young children be able to count on family environments of protection, care, provision and even tenderness. In fact all of us, women and men alike, are supposed to strive like Joseph did to create family, social, and work environments where the rules of the game are respect, care and tenderness—this is what God wants for all of humanity. These are the values that God has modeled through the Holy Family and that God wants to help us create. Family ties go much further than the biological or legal connections that we may have with one another. Family ties, in a Christmas perspective, include the fight for the good treatment of all of God’s creatures.

Joseph obtained the help and the powerful intervention of God to strengthen his own efforts. I do not think that he would have been able to persevere and keep walking with love and tenderness without having the certainty of the presence of God walking by his side. A violent society produces violent persons. Joseph, by his own means, would not have been different. It would have been too easy for him to fall into the same cycle of violence and indifference as everyone else. The Christmas miracle of God is the tenderness toward and the protection of those who are trampled underfoot by the values of the empire. The Christmas miracle is the creation in ourselves of the strength needed to walk in the presence and tenderness of God, and not to go racing down the speedway of violence and maltreatment.

In this Christmas season, God invites us to lean on Him and to confide in his constant presence in order to participate in this miracle of love and tenderness. May Mary and the Jesus child, who could easily have been victims of maltreatment, abuse, and violence, awake in us tenderness, caring, and protection for all people.

Katie Griffin

The 2008 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 280