Invited, Through a Back Door

'Mary is now with child, awaiting birth, and Joseph is full of expectancy as he enters the city of his own family. He searched for a place for the birth of him to whom heaven and earth belonged. 

'Could it be that the Creator would not find room in his own creation? Certainly, thought Joseph, there would be room in the village inn. There was room for the rich; there was room for those who were clothed in soft garments; there was room for everyone who had a tip to give to the innkeeper.

'But when finally the scrolls of history are completed down to the last word of time, the saddest line of all will be: "There was no room in the inn." 

'No room in the inn, but there was room in the stable. 

'The inn was the gathering place of public opinion, the focal point of the world's moods, the rendezvous of the worldly, the rallying place of the popular and the successful. 

'But there's no room in the place where the world gathers. The stable is a place for outcasts, the ignored and the forgotten. 

'The world might have expected the Son of God to be born in an inn; a stable would certainly be the last place in the world where one would look for him. The lesson is: divinity is always where you least expect to find it. 

'So the Son of God made man is invited to enter into his own world through a back door.'

Venerable Fulton J. Sheen 

Painting: Constable, Donkeys in the stable