One of the most profound symbols associated with the Birth of Jesus at Christmas is the manger. Saint Luke in his Gospel narrates how the Virgin Mother “wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn” (St. Luke 2:7). 

Thus, the stable became the place where Jesus was born, in the most humble circumstances. Jesus’ first bed was not a royal cradle but a lowly manger, a ‘feeding trough for animals’!

The stable symbolizes how Jesus is willing to come into any available and offered place or situation. It does not have to be extraordinary or high-priced. It does not even have to be respectable. Also, it does not have to be clean either. The presence of Jesus itself will change it; make it pure and honourable! 

The stable became a palace and the manger became a throne! Their appearance did not change, but His presence made the difference. In the same way, Jesus is willing to come and dwell in any human heart that is available and offered to Him. Wherever He enters or dwells, He transforms. This truth, therefore, becomes an important Message of Christmas!

A manger is a feeding trough for animals and was likely the cleanest place in the stable where the Virgin Mother could place the Baby Jesus. Christian Theology would later reflect on this exceptionally symbolic action and find its worthy connection to the Holy Eucharist, where Jesus Himself becomes spiritual food for humanity.

This is why the Feast of Christmas is also often labelled a ‘Eucharistic Feast’, on account of the rich symbolism of the manger scene.

Therefore, as we stand before the Nativity scene this Christmas, let us dwell upon the beautiful gift of the Holy Eucharist and how we can prepare to receive Jesus into our hearts and share Him with our fellow brothers and sisters by extending the ‘Table of the Lord’ to a ‘Table for the poor and the needy’ this Christmas!

According to one of the latest assessments by the World Bank, Our Motherland ranks sixth among countries with the highest food inflation with a percentage of 86%. Also, it is said that Sri Lanka has the sixth-highest rate of malnutrition among children in the world and the second-highest rate in Asia at the time of penning these lines. 
This food shortage is expected to pinch the people with insufferable pangs of hunger. Faced with such a deplorable situation, hopes are getting slimmer and slimmer of the dawn of a hunger-free Sri Lanka within the course of a few moons. 

The statement issued by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Sri Lanka given Christmas 2022 sheds much light on the importance of celebrating an ‘Austere Christmas’, so that we may journey to the ad fontes meaning of Christmas in meeting the Divine Baby nowhere else save in the manger in a timely clarion call using the inspiring words: 

“At every Christmas, we need to go to that manger and look for Him in the poor, the downtrodden and the desperate. Especially at a time like this, we need to be touched by the plight of the poor who are struggling to survive in the terrible economic crisis plaguing our country. There is no better way to celebrate Christmas than by being in solidarity with the poor and discovering the Babe born in Bethlehem in them.”

Placing that at the back of our minds, the same inspired Conference further urges us “to be conscious of those who suffer poverty and want and refrain from making this event a matter of mere external celebrations, wasting our hard-earned money. All such spending should be set apart to help the poor and the needy with dry rations, milk powder for children and medicine. The focus should not be on the externals but on the spiritual message of Christmas.”

Therefore, the invitation is to leave behind the ‘shop till you drop mentality’ of the spendthrifts or the ‘gourmet recipes and delicacies’ of the season which conveniently and comfortably ignore the grievances of the poor and also maintain a nonchalant attitude towards those who go hungry to bed, whispering the same words ourselves with a grim chuckle springing from a clear want of sympathy, if not empathy: “If they have no bread, let them eat cake”, often attributed to Marie Antoinette, the last Queen of France before the French Revolution. Although some hold the contrary opinion that she never uttered this strong statement, it has, at least come to symbolize the obliviousness of the aristocratic elite of the Bourgeois regime in general who turned a deaf ear to the just and innocent cries of the proletariat together with the burning social issues of the time!

Also, many of us can erroneously cling to a stubborn belief that individual acts of charity are sufficient to fulfil our Christian obligation to help all those experiencing hunger and poverty. While individual acts of charity are highly commendable and indeed necessary, they are not at all sufficient! We, as human beings, not only have a duty to do good work through individual charity but also to take every possible measure to combat hunger and its underlying roots.

 The Newborn Jesus, the Bread of Life, lay in a manger in the little town of Bethlehem, which means the ‘House of Bread’ in Hebrew – Bethlehem is made up of two Hebrew words: Bet -בית (meaning house) and lekhem (meaning bread). 

So, Bet-le hem means House of Bread. Today, this same Jesus who, as an adult, fed the hungry crowds still beckons us to come to the manger, into His presence and feed on Him the ‘Bread of Life’, so that we may prove ourselves to be His worthy disciples by filling the empty bellies of our poor and needy brothers and sisters this Christmas by sharing with them the ‘Bread for Life’. This twofold invitation is to eat and at the same time to feed others! How nice it would be, if we can work together as a United Nation leaving behind all our petty differences to restore Sri Lanka to Her one-time state of glory and grandeur of being the ‘Granary of the East’ for the ‘Bread for Life’, standing in parallel to Bethlehem which has gone into history as the ‘House of Bread’ where the ‘Bread of Life’ was born into this world of ours enthroned in a simple and humble manger!