A Baby Is Born With A Note Attached

Americans like their religious leaders to be non-controversial and non-confrontational. When they upset us, we feel a foul has been committed, a kind of “roughing the believer” infraction. This is especially true in sacred holiday seasons, when we’d rather see children dressed as shepherds and singing about peace on earth than hear our religious leaders ask what we are doing to build peace on earth.

Pope Francis continues to remind us that if religious faith is meant to comfort the afflicted, it is also meant to afflict the comfortable. He disturbed many people last week when the manger scene in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome was revealed. The baby Jesus lies in a crib wrapped in a Palestinian keffiyeh, or scarf.

The unspoken message was loud and clear. If we want to know where God can be found in our world, Pope Francis suggests that we shouldn’t comfort ourselves by picturing a scene two thousand years ago in Bethlehem. We should instead look to the people, especially the children, suffering and dying in Gaza today.

I have little doubt that Pope Francis will be accused of being pro-Palestinian because of the crèche in St. Peter’s. What about the children who have been killed in Israel? What about the children who died this past year in Ukraine, Syria, and Lebanon? What about the children who died in refugee camps along our own Southern border? What about the children who struggle to survive on Indian reservations?

It says more about us and how politicized we have become that observers have focused more on the scarf in the Vatican manger scene than on the baby, that we see a Palestinian baby portrayed instead of the baby himself.

There are some incontrovertible truths about babies. Every baby is vulnerable. Every baby is born with similar needs. Every baby born wants to be loved. No baby is born with a fist raised in anger. No baby is born spouting political slogans. No baby cries out for revenge. No baby is born with a nationality. No baby is born hating anyone.

For as long as I can remember, I have heard people lament that babies are born into such a broken world. I probably said or at least thought that at one time or another.

What if we believed that every baby born came with a note attached? The note says, “The Being who sent me asks that you show joy at my birth by building a world that I will flourish in.”

A truth for this season: Every baby born shares the same secret name, and that name is hope.