The baby Jesus and the angel of light - Cover Story

Christian Century, Dec 13, 1995 by Brian Abel Ragen

Neither of my parents told my brother and me many stories. We grew up in the age of television, so the burden of entertaining us did not fall too heavily on them. My mother was old-fashioned enough to read us bedtime stories--Kipling's are the ones I remember best--and Protestant enough to read us the Bible, or at least illustrated Bible stories. This last made us seem like prodigies to the nuns who taught our CCD classes, but I'm afraid none of the stories caught my imagination the way television did. Nothing in The Jungle Book or the gorier parts of the Old Testament haunted me like the version of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" saw on Walt Disney s Wonderful World of Color.

But now the television shows have faded, and the few stories that my parents did tell me are what haunt me. I recall two especially, both about miracles. This is my father's:

Once upon a time there was a little boy who was very poor. He and his brothers and sisters lived with their widowed mother, who was barely able to feed them all. He worked in a store every day after school and on the weekends. All his clothes were patched and worn. He had only one toy--a little car. (I have always pictured it as a Matchbox car.) Even that one plaything was broken: the roof was smashed in on one side, all but one of the windows were gone, and two of the wheels were missing. The little boy loved it very much. Since he had nothing else to play with, it became everything: a race car when he was a sportsman, a tank when he was a soldier, an ambulance when he was a doctor. Almost every moment of happiness he remembered had to do with that car.

It was Christmastime. The family was so poor that there would be no presents, but the little boy was excited all the same. He had always wanted to go to midnight mass on Christmas eve, and this year, for the first time, he would be allowed to stay up for it. Everyone had told him how splendid it was: the incense and Christmas carols, the fine vestments. And before the mass itself began, there would be the blessing of the creche. It was a very large creche. There were plaster figures of Joseph and Mary, of the wise men with their camels and donkeys laden with gifts, of the shepherds with their sheep and sheepdogs, of the herald angels hovering overhead. And a plaster figure of the baby Jesus, with a halo still more glorious than Mary's and Joseph's, lay on real straw in the center of it all. (We have all seen him: He always wears the same bland beatific smile and lies with his arms spread wide, both welcoming his adorers and prefiguring his crucifixion.)

In this parish, it was the custom for everyone who came to midnight mass to bring a gift for the Christchild. Before taking their places in the pews, people would lay some offering at the plaster childs crib. Often these gifts were very fine--splendid chalices for the altar, new clothes for the poor, envelopes full of money. On Christmas morning, it seemed as if the baby Jesus had been visited by many caravans of wise men. The little boy wanted very much to give the Christchild a present.

But what could he give? He gave all the money from his after-school job to his mother. He had nothing else. He decided that he would find another job and save enough to buy a present for the baby Jesus, and he did just that. All through Advent he got up before dawn and worked at another store until it was time to go to school. By the time Christmas Eve arrived, he had enough money to leave a good present at the creche. He sat at the table in the kitchen of his tiny house, counting what he had earned. While he was trying to decide whether he had time to buy a gift or should simply leave the money at the creche, his mother returned home. "Oh son," she said. "What a good boy you are! Now we can have a real Christmas dinner!" And she scooped up the money and hurried off to shop before all the stores closed.

The little boy was heartbroken. He went to his room, trying not to be angry at his mother. He thought of what he had been taught to do whenever he was hurt or disappointed: "Offer it up to Jesus." On the dresser, he saw his broken toy car. He had not had much time to play for weeks, but it had been waiting for him. And then he realized what he had to offer up to Jesus, and when he had combed his hair and dressed in his best clothes and was ready to set off for mass, the car was in his pocket.

He was going alone because his mother had to stay with the younger children. When he arrived the church was already filling up, and he was almost lost among the adults in their bulky coats. He felt very much alone, for almost everyone else seemed to be with family and friends. He walked up the aisle, genuflected just as. he had been taught, and turned to the creche, which was set up before one of the side altars, the one dedicated to St. Joseph. Most of the plaster figures had been in place all week, but tonight, for the first time, the baby Jesus was in his manger. Gifts were piling up before him. Some were splendidly wrapped--perhaps toys for poor children whose mothers were not as fiercely proud as the little boy's. Some were unwrapped, so you could see how expensive they were. The little boy stood shyly before the creche and laid his car amid all the treasures.