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...
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