Children tell their story

What happens when you invite a group of children to tell a story about a child? Answer: they do it and do it very well, because it takes the innocence of a child to explain the secret to the story of God's child who once came among us.

The words of tonight's gospel were repeated, a story that we adults have heard countless times. Editorial inconsistencies aside, the words themselves come alive in a very real way when they are enacted before our very eyes. When children are asked to do this, they have a way of adding their own slant to things, and that's just fine because it allows us (the more experienced children) to remember a time when we too would play, when we too would wait for this night with wrapped attention, when Christmas Eve was a time filled with surprises and a certain magic that filled us with anticipation and excitement.

Adults too can dream this dream, if we allow ourselves to become children once again, even just for a short while. Better yet, if we dare to truly live this story, not as one written so many years ago to recount an historic happening, but as an alegorical retelling of our existence today (and the world into which Christ was born was not so very different from the one we find ourselves in today), then we might be surprised at the insights we might glean, and the compassion that the gospel invites.

Of course, living this compassion in concrete ways is what life is all about, but putting it into action is where the rubber hits the road, and that's not always easy for us to do because it means that we must first admit that we are not perfect, and second that we need to rely on one another, but most importantly on the One who once came as a helpless child in order to teach us the way to true peace.