Why do we call our Christmastime project
Room in the Inn?
The Christmas story tells us that when Jesus was born, Mary and Joseph were unable to find any rooms at the local inn after travelling to the town of Bethlehem to participate in a census ordered by the ruler. The town must have been filled with visitors and Mary and Joseph were forced to find alternative accommodations.
Father Thomas Merton shared this reflection on that story:
Why was there no room in the inn? Because the inns were filled with people coming to town to be counted. Counted for taxes. Counted for military service. There is no room for Jesus in the places that count. From day one, Jesus has been making his home with people of no account.
Into this world, this demented inn, in which there is absolutely no room for Him at all, Christ has come uninvited. And His place is with those others for whom there is no room. His place is with those who do not belong, who are rejected by power because they are regarded as weak, those who are discredited, who are denied the status of persons, tortured, exterminated. With those for whom there is no room, Christ is present in this world.
The only way there will be room in the inn, or room at the banquet table, is if we make room.
“With God, we imagine this circle of compassion. Then we imagine no one standing outside of that circle, moving ourselves closer to the margins so that the margins themselves will be erased. We stand there with those whose dignity has been denied. We locate ourselves with the poor and the powerless and the voiceless. At the edges, we join the easily despised and the readily left out. We stand with the demonized so that the demonizing will stop. We situate ourselves right next to the disposable so that the day will come when we stop throwing people away.” — Father Gregory Boyle