Keeping Jesus warm

On Christmas Day we celebrate the fact that the Word became flesh. Or, to use a profound phrase of Benedict XVI, the day when eternity entered time. The exact date of this extraordinary event is now known, but it was probably not December 25. That does not matter. It is the entry of grace into a fallen world to which we raise our spirits, and the day of the solstice is appropriate.

Philosophic speculations have their place, but primarily Christmas is a great feast, and loved specially by children. It is the day of the year when all the Scrooges of this world feel themselves embattled, and, as Charles Dickens hoped, are carried on a flood of goodwill. The book to which I am referring, A Christmas Carol, is certainly one of the best Christmas stories ever. He wrote it on commission in a matter of weeks.

It is part of the magic of Christmas to thus engender stories and legends. One such has just come my way in the form of a printed sheet. I think it is true. It sounds as though it is. On the sheet is printed a line block of two wayfarers, with the legend: My wish at Christmas is that our paths may meet in Christ.

Under the title Two Babes in the Manger, it is stated that in 1944 two Americans answered an invitation from the Russian department of education to teach morals and ethics, based on biblical principles, in the public schools. They were also invited to teach at businesses, prisons, fire-brigades, the national police department, and an orphanage of about 1,000 abandoned children, in state care.

The two men tell the story. It was nearing Christmas 1944, and time for the orphans to hear the story of Jesus of Nazareth.

They had been brought up under communism, so it was quite new to them. To us, it is in a sense almost staled by repetition, so we can lose sight of how quite extraordinary it all is. This is truly a magic tale.

Children and staff listened amazed to how Joseph and Mary arrived in Bethlehem, found no room at the inn, and baby Jesus, the divine infant, was placed in a manger.

Children were told to make simple mangers from pieces of cardboard and yellow napkins from the United States. Doll-like babies were cut from tin, also brought from the United States.

The fascinated children worked well, quite in the grip of the first telling to them of the nativity story.

One of the Americans tells of how he came upon the table where little Mischa, aged about six, sat. He finished his manger and sat, bright-eyed, as children are apt to be at Christmas.

The man was startled to see not one but two babies in the manger. He had made no mention of twins, so puzzled, he called the interpreter.

Little Mischa crossed his arms and began to tell the story of the Nativity. He spoke very seriously and, though he had heard the story only once, he was accurate.

After he had told the story how Mary had put the infant Jesus in the manger, Jesus looked at me and asked if I had anywhere to live. I told him I had no mama or papa, and so nowhere to live.

Then Jesus told me I could live with him. I told him I could not, because I had no gift to give him, like the others had.

I wanted to stay with Jesus so much that I tried my best to think what I could find for a gift, and the only thing I could find was myself.

So I asked Jesus: If I keep you warm, will that be a good enough gift? (In icy Russia, that is great gift indeed as the orphans knew cold only too well.)

Jesus told me: If you keep me warm, that will be the best gift anybody ever gave me.

So I got into the manger, and then Jesus looked at me and he told me I could stay with him for always.

Little Mischa finished his story with tears welling in his eyes and running down his cheeks.

The story had answered a primary need and fear of the abandoned. He would never be alone again, ever.

The infant Mischa and the infant Jesus in the crude manger, warm in the cruel Russian winter, is in its way a statement, a lesson, of basic Christianity, a true Christmas story.