During the 2009 Christmas season, staff from our Word Made Flesh (WMF) children’s home in Chennai, India, found a brother and sister living and working on a trash heap. Referred to as rag-pickers—a derogatory term that over-identifies the children with what they do rather than who they are—the small children were digging through garbage looking for anything they could eat.
When they were very young, their father had abandoned them. Their young mother began scavenging through dumps and trash heaps looking for things that could be salvaged and recycled. She would sell the scraps that she found, but it wasn’t enough to provide for her family.
Around the world—in every country—some version of this dehumanizing way of survival mars the dignity of women and men, girls and boys, all who bear the divine imprint of God in their humanity.
A short time before our community met the children, a fire broke out in the slum where the family was living. Everything was lost. The children were found living on a train platform, begging, neglected and slowly starving to death. They were so malnourished that even the introduction of regular meals made them sick.
The irony of the collision of our community’s lives and the lives of these little ones during the Christmas season is tucked into their names. The boy, six years old, is named Joseph. His four-year-old sister’s name is Mary.
Mere weeks before Christmas, the arrival of our young Mary and Joseph presented us with an opportunity to practice hospitality—the kind of hospitality that seeks to recognize the disguise of Christ in those who are poor and marginalized.
As Advent is now upon us, may we find the courage to open our eyes to the surprising presence of Christ around us. May we have the openness of heart to respond to the unlikely needs of the Divine that we will inevitably encounter. May our homes, and our souls, be places of warm hospitality where the expectant can find home.
Come Jesus.