There is a span of years in every woman's life when her calendar is filled with one kind of event: showers. Baby showers. Wedding showers. Couples' showers. And while all of these kinds of showers have some consistency in their components--food, small talk, games, a raffle--there is none more predictable than the baby shower. One can assume that there will be cut-out cookies in the shape of a giraffe or elephant with pastel blue or pink icing. One can expect to hear nearly all the guests ask the soon-to-be-mom the questions "so, how are you feeling?" or "so, are you ready?". But the most predictable is what kind of gifts are given. Bottles. Onesies. Pacifiers. Oh my!
One of the gifts that is always given is a receiving blanket: the blanket which the newborn is wrapped in after being examined by the doctor and nurses and the blanket which the baby is swaddled in as he or she is presented to the mother and father.
As I was thinking about this common shower gift, I was struck by the descriptor word of this term. Receiving. The parents receive the baby, wrapped in this blanket. The parents are presented with this baby and are invited to embrace him or her, to welcome the child into their lives.
As I've been praying the past few days in preparation for Christmas, I keep going back to Luke's recounting of the Lord's birth. And what struck me was not the innkeeper's lack of vacancy or the angels' chorus or the adoring wise men. But it was this: "an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes" (Luke 2:12). And I wondered why it was necessary for St. Luke to include the detail that Jesus was wrapped in swaddling clothes. But perhaps Luke wanted to teach us the proper way of approaching this great mystery, this beautiful celebration.
Thousands of years ago, in a stable in the little town of Bethlehem, we "find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger" (Luke 2:12). A child wrapped in a receiving blanket. Is this not the invitation for this week and the entirety of our lives: to receive Christ?
This week the Lord invites us to come, as the shepherds and the wise men, to the stable. Standing at the edge, we find ourselves paralyzed by awe, by complete bewilderment of the beauty encompassed in such a filthy place. And then we behold the serene face of our Blessed Mother, Mary. With her eyes, she speaks of the Wisdom that rests in that place. And she beckons us forward, motioning for us to come and see. To inch closer and encounter the one who has come. To gaze deeper into the seemingly common birth of a child and see the extraordinary birth that our hearts have longed for incessantly all the days of our lives.
All the world seems to still and we lose our breath as we stare into the manger where the gentle child lies undisturbed. So small. So innonecnt. Yet, so mighty. And that beautiful Lady swoops him up; to gaze is not sufficient for her. She wants us to experience the depth of the beauty that she has. So she places him in our arms--that baby wrapped in swaddling clothes.
And it is there that our hearts know their rightful duty--to receive. What the child wants is not to be fully understood or given gifts or for us to even speak at all. But the great mystery presented to us is that this child simply longs to be received.
Is there room in your heart to receive this priceless gift?
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