At God's Door

The first days of your months and your feasts my soul has hated; and though you multiply your prayers, I will not hear you.
"Isaiah"

I saw them on Christmas Eve.
A trinity strange of dress, of face, and of tongue:
A righteous father crawling on toward fifty, a young mother who does not lift her gaze, out of modesty and shyness, and a boy in whom is every fresh meaning of beauty.
Misery stood perplexed in the faces of all three, and the smell of poverty rose from their sleeves; they walked like people unacquainted with this earth, as though they were the Men of the Cave raised back to life.
I caught sight of them at five doors, and they vanished from me at three; then I saw them no more.

I watched this family at the gate of a monastery whose monks were preparing the Christmas breakfast: the meats being tormented over the fire, the smell of their roasting whetting the appetite of the gorged. As for the aged wines, do not ask — the youngest of them remembers the reign of Emir Bashir; they glitter in the crystal decanters, their heads ablaze with hoary white. And the roosters have their necks cracked in revenge upon their "grandfather," the cock of Peter the denier; and the fruits are being picked over and arranged.

There, at the door of that monastery, I heard this wretched family ask for bread in the name of Him who said: I was hungry, and you fed me. Then I saw them sent away with empty bellies. The boy craved a lemon and stretched out his hand toward it; it was wrenched from him, and his ear was twisted...

And at the door of another convent I heard the mother ask the nun for an old shirt for her shivering boy, and a patched pair of shoes for her barefoot husband, and for herself a dress of whatever sort; and the nun slammed the door in her face, and but for the kindness of God the boy's fingers would have been crushed.
And at the door of the palace of a lady of luxury I glimpsed the mother offering her son as a servant for a mouthful of bread; and her request was not granted. And a puppy is brought to that lady, and she smothers it with embraces and nuzzlings and kisses, and feels no shame.

She feeds it every shape and color of food and sweets, while (the Son of Man) at her door devours with his eyes what the son of a dog would not crave — and it is not bestowed on him.
And at the door of (Caesar) I saw his gatekeeper drive her away and thrust her toward the policeman. Would that they had jailed her — she would have found rest!!
And before the door of (Caiaphas) I saw her laughing with all her mouth, as though the paints and colors and statues within had made her forget her misery. Then the gentle boy turned rough and tugged at his mother's hem, crying: Mother, we want no food from here — their bread is bitter.
At midnight the (family) passed before the door of the church, and after some hesitation entered it... There it stands among the feast-keepers, staring at the crèche in wonder... And when the high priest swept past in his mantle, his crown, and his crozier, the boy was astonished and shaken; and the singing swelled: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace — and he frowned and scowled, as though an old memory had come back to him. And when the coins jingled, their clatter rising from the silver (tray), the boy cried out: My house shall be called a house of prayer... and flung himself upon the plate; and the policeman struck him and drove him out — for the whip was not with him, that they might know him by it, as the two knew him at the breaking of the bread.

After the Mass I came upon the family roaming the city. It sought shelter and food until it was worn out; it took refuge from the rainy night in the portico of the temple, and they rooted it out; so it strayed through the city, and kept on walking until it had passed beyond it, shaking its dust from its feet.
It came at last to a village that kings had never entered and corrupted. The poor of the hamlet were keeping vigil, as their custom is, musing on the kingdom of God, recalling together the story of the Nativity in the remote past,

and they welcomed the family and grieved for its state. They brought it into a cramped little house and kindled the fire until the ceiling of the house and the flames met. Then they spread for their guests a table from the (ready store) of the village house. The sight of the boy touched one of the women; stirred to generosity, she hurried off to her house and came back with an egg — the only egg in the village, which Umm Yusuf had hidden away for just such a desperate hour.

Great was the villagers' joy in their three guests. Had they not earned a reward on the night of the feast? Had they not fed a poor man and received him in the name of Jesus? And blessings on Umm Yusuf rose from all the company of the house: she had brightened the face of the village — for who has eggs in December but the ageless Umm Yusuf!!

And imagination did its work: the village saw in its guests the symbol of (the Holy Family), and divided them up among themselves. Umm Yusuf put the boy to sleep with her own children; the woman slept at another woman's house; and the father slept in a third house.

And their faith in what they had seen grew until it became certainty; and a righteous old man hastened to tell the village priest what he had seen, and the aged priest forced himself up and came. And how amazed the people were to find no one — only a sheet of paper under the pillow where the boy had slept, on which was written: He came unto His own, and His own received Him not...

When Father Semaan read it he struck his own face and said: How happy was Simeon the elder!!! And how wretched you are, Father Semaan!! And he burst out, and began to weep like a child.

And the news flew to the city with the morning, and Father Semaan wrote to his spiritual superior of what had happened in his village; and the superior scoffed and grew angry. He summoned one of his parish priests and ordered him to give the report the lie at the ten o'clock Mass; and the priest complied, and said to the people after the reading of the Gospel:

Dear children,

There has reached the ears of our good and all-venerable pastor that laughable rumor which came to us today, on the morning of this blessed feast, from the village of "Btab." The impudent boy who dared to stretch out his hand toward the (tray) at the midnight Mass will be taught his manners by our august government, God sustain it, as soon as it lays hands on him. It is hard on his heels; but I, for all my scant learning, incline to believe — nay, I affirm — that the wrath of our Lord descended upon him, and the earth split open and swallowed him together with his father and his mother.

My blessed brethren, our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory, does not appear in this shabby guise; He shall come in great splendor and glory to judge the living and the dead, as the Apostles have said. We wait, O living brethren, to meet our Lord in the clouds, as Saint Paul the Apostle says; so fear not these tales and wild rumors, and believe them not. Our Lord said to us with His own holy mouth: I am with you unto the end of the ages.

As for (our "grandfather") Father Semaan, who put this story about — as you know, he has become (an old graybeard), God help him — and help us to bear with him and his stories...

Some laughed, and others sighed. And the priest went on and finished his Mass. Then he gathered up the tray as usual — and nothing happened...