not all, perhaps, read the weekly "Verona Fedele" sin ... It 'an article published yesterday (mine) that I like to propose here. Otherwise, there is not much to say.
(image: Sunset over Bethlehem, photo Talia Casu)
The Proprietor Bethlehem, perhaps, was a bit 'in trouble in those days. The census had brought many travelers from its parts: men alone, or accompanied by adult children, returning to the village of origin to obey the Emperor's request, so eager to count ... neither he nor his guests were certainly in a good mood : traveling in the wet season, you know, brings fun, so many requests for accommodation, if allowed a higher gain than usual, posed problems and difficulties that the hotel would have gladly avoided, as it was used to settle for the usual income. And then, God was with Abraham was clear: "Look at the stars, count it if you can ... try to count the grains sand on the seashore ... so shall your descendants: can not be counted "- and now, here: we count the Romans, family by family, with scrupulous accuracy, as is done with the sheep and goats before selling or to slaughter. The invaders did not just ride roughshod over the Promised Land, but they count one by one the children of Abraham! God has forsaken us to this point?
That carpenter with his wife giving birth almost could not attract his sympathy, the hotel was already full, and we needed was a birth in the middle of the night! The guests were already quite tired from the trip and tested by anxiety, humiliated by the registration just made or to be rendered to the Roman officers who are disheartened by the same thoughts as she recited the evening prayers in groups. If there is no place - has told Joseph - needless to reiterate: I understand you, you try to understand me. I know, I see that your wife is pregnant, but I what can I do? Mica produce them, me, the beds! And I have no more rooms: you see yourself, be reasonable! Be patient, I can not help it! There are bad times, brother, you know it: it seems that God has abandoned us, these Romans are worse than the Babylonians have been ... our sins, who knows? It should be 'in peace, brother, understand me: God will help.
He had his reasons, the hotel it was a good man, doing his job. It was not bad, nor malicious. His heart was heavy, his faith wavered, and the civil life worried him, he was tired, hungry, confused, welcome guests with professionalism, but just not had a private room where a woman could give birth as it should. We can not make him the icon of the meanness and malice, because neither the one nor the other belonged to him. He was just tired, your host: oppressed, discouraged. It is not a sin to be - sometimes you can not avoid it, and you have every reason to find to groan in despair.
who knocked on his door, curled up on itself in the womb, was the one who would say, "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest": the person to whom it was said, "will not break the bruised reed or off a lamp wick." Had accepted, as it would have been paid off! Quell'affanno more, this new thinking - a woman in labor! right now! with all that I have to do! in times like these! - Would have given himself and his faith, comforted, cheered: the angels they sang over her house, and he would have heard them, the Magi would have come to adore the Child in his hotel, he had the certainty of God's promises, and would have seen the salvation prepared by God before all nations "( ... including Romania).
Joseph, we can imagine, has insisted he had compassion and went to look for another place. He was not reprimanded, much less sentenced him in his heart was just a tired man, humiliated, disappointed, discouraged, struggling and afraid, and not without reason. For him, Jesus was born: for him and his understandable fatigue - for his honest distrust. This account: that Jesus was born, because a new era began and especially for the hotel. "The blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk," Jesus tells the disciples of John. We might add, to paraphrase freely, and we hoteliers, one day after another while struggling and fearful as we know only do we learn at last to trust in God - in which he transforms us little by little, and comes to live at home ours.
