I used to ask women in my congregation to tell me about the most important experience in their lives. Many would answer that it was the births of their children. Even if that was as long as 50 years ago, the memories were still very present to them, and the women would describe their experiences with warmth and joy.

Pregnancy and giving birth make us women more aware of life, in a special way. Spirit, soul and body become one in this experience. Something happens to us which comes from deep within us, over which we have no control, without our doing anything. It comes to us as a gift. The child is conceived within the warmth of our body. It grows inside us - at first completely hidden, but soon we can feel it and be aware of it. It develops all by itself. We can only follow its development, and nurture it by taking care of ourselves, by keeping healthy, eating well and regular medical care.

However, for many women pregnancy is also a time of crisis, in which their awareness is heightened of that which is lacking in their own lives. In large areas of Europe, a healthy diet and basic medical care are privileges enjoyed only by a few. Security and love as the basis for psychological well-being are often crowded out by worries, loneliness, lack of social services, domestic violence or even the violence of war. Such women must be wondering, can we give this child what it will need in order to grow? Can we fulfill our responsibility, with the limited energies we have? Can we protect the child from harm? Will we be able to help make this earth a place where the next generations have enough to live on?

Mary, the mother of Jesus, had every reason to think these thoughts. Her pregnancy was far advanced when she had to set out on a difficult journey - there was no alternative, she had to go. Without a roof over her head, turned away by the suspicious inhabitants of Bethlehem: no room in this inn! In the poorest of shelters, without even the simplest hygienic measures or medical help, Mary had to give birth to her baby. Only Joseph was there to assist her, and he was as helpless and inexperienced as she in this situation. And the world into which this child was born? Palestine was in ruins, plundered and impoverished by an occupying power. Nationalist rebels were fighting a guerrilla war, which was brutally put down by the occupying troops. The government consisted of hangers-on without any real power. Even the king did not hesitate to use ruthless violence when it came to protecting his position. So, in these totally brutalised, insecure surroundings, Mary’s baby was born.

But the anxiety, the strain and the suffering soon recede as Mary holds her child in her arms. And perhaps she has hardly had time to collect her thoughts when there are the shepherds at the door, talking excitedly about the angels that appeared to them out in their field. This child is to bring them joy, to heal the world and make all things new. "But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart," says the Christmas story (Luke 2.19).

Then Mary is alone again with her baby, in the stillness after all the excitement. Mary holds him in her arms, wholly focussed on him. In her silent dialogue with the baby, the shepherds’ words sink into her mind. A deeper meaning in the birth of her child? He is supposed to embody healing for the ruins which surround her? She cannot yet grasp this, but the thought is a spark of light within her, light coming from the child in her arms, which we see reflected in her face and which fills her whole being.

That which is happening to Mary at this moment can perhaps be experienced by others, even those who have never had the experience of motherhood themselves - for example, when they enter into contact with children around them and remember that God came into the world as a child. To the people around him, years later, Jesus was to point out children as parables for the kingdom of God. Who might these children have been, whom he encountered on the street and in the public square: street children, orphans of war? girls and boys who carried the burden of their desperate families’ alcohol and drug consumption, and the domestic violence which often went with it, conspicuous in their filth and wretched clothing? Or so-called "normal" children who enjoyed protection and care? Whoever they were, in their faces can be seen the face of him who wants to heal us. They are made in the image of Jesus Christ, he who himself came into the world as a child, defenseless and vulnerable, open and questioning, at our mercy and dependent on us for his growth and development.

The baby in Mary’s arms can also bring us into contact with a fundamental dimension of our own being, that is, with the child in us. As adults we still carry within us the girl (or boy) we once were, which is longing to be rediscovered and to become part of our adult lives. Many of us are able to touch the child within us when we encounter newborn babies and little children. Then our masks can fall, and hard places in us soften; we feel that much in our daily lives is more appearance than reality, that we need to turn back, to find a new direction. In contact with children, with their spontaneous laughter and play, in the warmth of their natural affection and the openness of their questions, we come back to our child selves - and in the light of Christmas, that means rediscovering that we are made in God’s image.

In the picture, Mary is holding the baby in her lap. When we women look for the child within us, we might imagine holding her in our lap. It is as if Mary, with her protecting arms, is also holding her own inner child, the happy little girl she once was. Or the little girl burdened by the depressing climate around her, or wounded by the experience of violence and abuse, or suffering from the knowledge that, being "only" a girl, she is not valued by her family. Whatever was the formative experience of Mary’s inner child, Mary now sits deeply engrossed in her relationship with her. It is important to regain contact with that little girl, to take her in her arms and comfort her, to encourage her, to laugh and be happy with her.

Jesus speaks, in the Gospel of John (ch.3), of our being born again through the Holy Spirit. The medieval mystics interpreted being born again as a process in which God is born anew within us. We are challenged to become Mary ourselves; to conceive the new within us, to let it grow within the darkness of our lives and our surroundings, through the many uncertainties and times of pain which are characteristic of a process of growth. Being born again, being healed, is a process that calls for patience and endurance. Often it is through crisis and through passion that the new is born. The background colour of the picture reminds us of this. Purple is the colour of the Passion. It is a mixture of red - the colour of blood and of the earthly life, also the colour of fire, of anger, aggression, or strife - and blue, the colour of heaven, of the divine. Purple is also the colour of transformation. In the foreground, the ground under Mary’s feet, under her life, there is a lot of darkness mixed with the purple. In the background, in the distance beyond the scene which is portrayed, the purple is lighter, delicate and translucent. In suffering, in the Passion, God is present.

Eva-Sibylle Vogel-Mfato
CEC Women's Desk and Interchurch Service