Day 5: No Room at the Inn

The fifth day of the Saint Andrew Christmas Novena, the midpoint, turns to a moment that has shaped Catholic Advent reflection for two thousand years: the moment at Bethlehem when there was no room at the inn (Luke 2:7). The Lord of all creation came into the world to find the doors of human hospitality closed, and the Catholic devotional tradition has long meditated on this poverty as the foundation of the Lord's solidarity with all who are unwelcomed and unhoused.

Today's prayer (recite fifteen times)

Hail and blessed be the hour and moment in which the Son of God was born of the most pure Virgin Mary, at midnight, in Bethlehem, in piercing cold. In that hour vouchsafe, O my God, to hear my prayer and grant my desires, through the merits of Our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of His blessed Mother. Amen.

Today's meditation

The Gospel records the moment with characteristic restraint: "And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn" (Luke 2:7). The Catholic tradition has filled out the picture from the early centuries: the inn (kataluma in the Greek, perhaps a guest room rather than a commercial inn in our modern sense) was full of travelers come for the Roman census; Joseph knocked at door after door without success; finally the holy family was led to a stable on the edge of the town, where the animals' feeding-trough became the cradle of the Eternal Word.

Pope Saint John Paul II, in his Christmas homilies during his long pontificate, returned again and again to this scene. The Lord's first experience of the world He had come to redeem was rejection. The doors closed in His face. The Catholic faithful, contemplating this on the fifth day of the novena, are asked the obvious question: would my door have been open? The question is not historical (we cannot have been at Bethlehem); it is contemporary. The Lord still comes to us, in the persons of the poor, the unborn, the dying, the immigrant, the spiritually homeless, the lonely Catholic in our parish whom no one greets after Mass. The doors are closed against Him in our own time as well as in 4 BC.

Today's intention

Today, in addition to your principal intention, examine the doors of your own life. Lord Jesus, who came at midnight to a closed door, search the doors of my heart. Where have I refused You in the persons of the poor, the unwanted, the strangers? Where do I need to open?

A practical Catholic Advent discipline that flows from this meditation: identify, before the close of the novena, one concrete act of hospitality or charity that you can perform in the spirit of the open door. The act may be small (a meal for an elderly neighbor, a contribution to the parish food drive, a phone call to a forgotten relative) or larger (the welcome of a difficult family member at the Christmas table, the volunteer work at a homeless shelter for one of the days of the Christmas octave). Make the commitment today; carry it out in the days following the novena.

Reflection

The Catholic spiritual tradition has long observed that the no room at the inn meditation is the foundation of Catholic social teaching. The Lord Jesus identified Himself with the unwelcomed and the poor at His birth; He identified Himself with them again in His ministry ("Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me", Matthew 25:40); He identified Himself with them at His death (a public criminal execution outside the city walls). The Catholic doctrine of the corporal works of mercy (feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, visit the sick, visit the prisoner, bury the dead) is grounded in this Lord-with-the-rejected.

The Saint Andrew Christmas Novena, with its meditation on the closed door at Bethlehem, is a Catholic invitation to renew the corporal works of mercy in our own lives during Advent. The novena prepares us for Christmas not only by deepening our interior contemplation but by opening our doors to those whom the Lord brings to us in His name.

Closing

Conclude with the Our Father and the Hail Mary.

Lord Jesus, born in poverty, may my heart be the inn You did not find at Bethlehem.