Following yonder star: like the Magi, today's migrants face hardships as they traverse afar, but they can also show us how we're all on the move.

ONE OF MY MOST VIVID CHRISTMAS MEMORIES IS THE NACIMIENTO, OR NATIVITY SCENE, I SAW years ago in the home of Jesus and Emily Salazar in San Antonio. Their nacimiento extended along three walls the living room and was decorated with colorful serapes, poinsettias, flowers, and Christmas lights. It included customary figures such as the Magi, the shepherds, the angels announcing the Good News, and of course Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus.

It also had additional characters. Elizabeth reached out with open arms to embrace her kinswoman Mary. Simeon looked with wonder at the child in his arms while the prophetess Anna raised her, eyes and voiced her thanks to God. Jesus' abuelos, or grandparents, Joachim and Ann were also there, a visible reminder that he had elders and loved ones who rejoiced at his birth.

Other figures recalled the harsher and even brutal events connected to the story of Jesus' coming among us. A Roman official held an open scroll and barked out Caesar Augustus' command that all residents must return to their place of origin and register for the census. One of Herod's soldiers stood with bloody sword over an anguished mother, who embraced the murdered body of her son. Mary and hastened on the flight to Egypt, Joseph looking back over his shoulder and scanning the horizon for any sign of pursuers.

Clearly this was not the sanitized version of the Christmas story to which I was accustomed, but the scandalous, unedited, full biblical account of the Savior's birth. The unforgettable images posed a challenge we Christians face every Christmas. How can we enter into the familiar story of Christ's birth in fresh ways that make it alive and transformative for us?

The current national debate about immigration has enabled me to see another significant element of the infancy narratives that often escapes notice: the striking number of migrations in the story of Jesus' birth. According to the gospels, Jesus' birth set two groups of people in motion: the Wise Men and the shepherds. Like countless immigrants, the Wise Men "from the East" (Matt. 2:1) traveled to a distant land in pursuit of an elusive star, not knowing what dangers they would encounter or how they would realize their dream. Upon their arrival the malevolent leader Herod tried to trick these foreigners and use them for his own unscrupulous purposes. How often migrants feel like the Magi: besieged by forces beyond their control, unsure of whom to trust, seeking Christ as their only sure refuge.

Similarly the shepherds resemble today's migrant workers. They toiled day and night to the point that they were even "living in the fields" (Luke 2:8). They were afraid when the angels appeared to them, just as our immigrant sisters and brothers often live in fear of cruelty and the unexpected. Yet they dared to leave flocks and families behind to go find the God born in a manger who reveals himself to the meek and humble.

Several years ago at church I met a young man from El Salvador who was a refugee from the violence in his native land and a man of deep faith and conviction. Over the following Sundays I noticed that more and more young men were accompanying him to church. I told him he was the best evangelizer in the parish, and we all owed him a debt of gratitude for bringing so many young people into our parish community.

He responded with the humility and depth I had grown to admire in him: "No, I am the one who thanks you and all the people of this parish. In this country everything is new to me. It is all so fast and everything so unfamiliar. No one talks to me except my boss, who yells at me to work harder. But here at church I hear the songs and the prayers that I learned in El Salvador. People smile at me. They speak my language. Coming to Mass on Sunday is the only time during the whole week when I feel that I am at home."

Baby on board

The person who journeys the most in the Christmas accounts is Mary. Luke recounts that right after she conceived by the Holy Spirit she "set out and traveled to the hill country in haste" (Luke 1:39). Why such a rush? Had she received word that her elder kinswoman Elizabeth was also with child and gone to assist her? Did she fear the rumors she might suffer once it was learned that she was pregnant before her wedding? She had her reasons, and like many immigrant women she did not let pregnancy deter her from the ardors of travel.

Nor were she and Joseph excused from the journey to Bethlehem for the census of Emperor Augustus, who callously mandated that even women about to give birth register in their appointed town. To this day, the whims of political leaders force the migration of vulnerable peasants like Joseph and Mary.

As strangers in Egypt, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph were political refugees. The Holy Family did not know local customs nor speak the native language. Like numerous other refugee mothers, Mary had to fend for her family in isolation--no relatives to assist in child care, no friends to mourn with her over the horrific slaughter of the Holy Innocents, no contact with her mother who languished back home, no work for her husband other than that of a migrant laborer, no opportunity to participate in family events like weddings, funerals, and religious celebrations.

Yet in all her struggles Mary's faith never wavered. Indeed, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, quoting Vatican II's Lumen Gentium, Mary's life itself was a "pilgrimage of faith." The plight of contemporary immigrant mothers can help us imagine what Mary experienced. In Pat Mora's poem "Elena," one mother remembers how she would smile while listening to her little ones, understanding every word they'd say, their jokes, their songs:

   But that was in Mexico
   Now my children go to American high schools
   They speak English. At night they sit around
   the kitchen table, laugh with one another.
   I stand by the stove and feel dumb, alone.
   I bought a book to learn English;
   My husband frowned, drank more beer.
   My oldest said, 'Mama, he doesn't want you
   to be smarter than he is.' I'm 40, embarrassed at mispronouncing
   words,
   embarrassed at the laughter of my children,
   the grocer, the mail carrier. Sometimes I take
   My English book and lock myself in the bathroom,
   say the thick words softly, for if I stop trying, I will be deaf
   when my children need my help.

Today's migratory peoples remind us that Jesus was not born into a stable family, but one that was constantly on the move both spiritually and physically. Like Mary, migrants reveal to us that as people of faith we are all "strangers and foreigners on the earth [who are] seeking a homeland" in heaven (Heb. 11:13-14).

The immigration of God

The most significant migration in the Christmas event is the migration of Christ himself: from heaven to earth, from divinity to humanity. The early Church Fathers taught that one of the wonders of the Incarnation is that it revealed the deep humility of God, who was born as vulnerable as any one of us and was utterly dependent on his mother and the wider human community for survival.

Jesus came to earth. He left his heavenly homeland and took the risk of walking among us, so that he might show us the way to migrate back with him. The Incarnation, the immigration of God, teaches us the redemptive meaning of Christmas: "You are strangers and aliens no longer. No, you are fellow citizens of the saints and members of the household of God" (Eph. 2:19).

Jesus' immigration to Earth has many parallels with the sojourn of today's immigrants. He had friends, family, and an adoptive father to support him, yet he longed for his own Father and his "Father's house" (Luke 2:49). No one from his new home could fully understand his mission and his struggles. In his hour of greatest need he felt alone and abandoned. He was often rejected and in the end scourged, spat upon, humiliated, killed, and buried far from home. Despite all this, like innumerable immigrants, his life was a sacrifice for others. He enriched his adoptive land by bringing with him the ways and the wisdom of his celestial home. Our confident hope as Christians is that when Jesus left this land of his exile he fulfilled his promise: "I am going to prepare a place for you" (John 14:3).

Reading the Christmas story from the perspective of immigrants unveils the human drama surrounding Jesus' birth and calls us to a more faithful response to Christ born anew in today's world, particularly in our immigrant sisters and brothers. It also reveals a fundamental consequence of the Incarnation: We, too, are immigrants on this earth.

Like the Magi, we should not allow ourselves to be fooled by the snares and deceit of our world. Like the shepherds, we need to overcome our fears and place our hope in God's promises. Like the Holy Family, we must constantly remind ourselves that here we have no lasting city and strive to lead lives that show our unquenchable longing for our true home. Like Mary, we must see our time on earth as a daily pilgrimage of prayer and faithfulness. Like Jesus, we must embrace our calling: to know that we come from God and to fulfill our mission on Earth so we can be reunited with God in heaven.

This is our vocation. This is our human destiny. This is what the Son of God revealed to us in the wondrous gift of divine immigration, which we celebrate and pledge ourselves to emulate at Christmas.

By TIMOTHY MATOVINA, who teaches theology and is the director of the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism at the University of Notre Dame. These reflections stem from conversations with Hispanic pastoral leaders in the formation program of the Instituto Cultural de Liderazgo en el Medio Oeste (ICLM), whom he gratefully acknowledges.