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Twice, I was very pregnant in Advent, and I thought a lot about how riding on a donkey might bring on labour. With each month of pregnancy, babies occupied more of my body – as well as my mind and heart. And with birth, these little people become literal parts of my body and soul existing in the world distinct from me.
Having babies over 11 years, I have been carrying one or more fetal babies, infants and then toddlers and small children for the better part the last two decades. In my belly, in my arms, on my hips.
And then somewhere over the last year, I mostly stopped carrying them physically. But I have never stopped carrying any of them. (I was reminded of this recently in a video by Matt Maher and Amy Grant about their Advent song “Always Carry You.”)
Still, cells from their bodies exist in mine. Scientists call this microchimerism. And any adult that has ever loved a child knows that they imprint themselves on your spirit. We carry children with us, loving them, hoping for them, longing to support them always.
As they grow, I become more and more aware of how this relationship shifts into mutuality, that they also carry me.
When Jesus comes to us as an infant, he creates this same bond with his particular family. A teenage girl and her trusting fiancé. A single mother and a foster father. It doesn’t take long before the community of love grows. Joseph’s relatives in Bethlehem if you read more from Ken Bailey’s Jesus through Middle Eastern Eyes. Shepherds and angels, animals and kings. Then Egypt.
The miracle of a liturgical year is that Jesus comes to the world – and each of us specifically – again and again. He asks us to carry him once more into the arms of a weary world. To prepare a place for him. To make space for more love, to extend the circle of hospitality in our hearts, and our homes and our whole world.
When one of my kids asks for a play date, I often try to set up more than one. We can easily end up with eight or 10 extra people in the house. And as long as it isn’t for weeks on end, frankly, eight kids is easier than four. And I love getting to know their friends.
The thing about this practice of making space and carrying another little one is that it makes us more likely to make space for more of God’s people. I think that’s why God sent a baby. He chose to need us to carry him. Could anything be more incredible than the Creator of all that is being nursed, rocked to sleep, carried when he cried?
He is still choosing to need us. To be peacemakers and neighbours, volunteers and protestors, servants and leaders. Builders and makers, creators and visionaries, healers and walkers of roads less travelled. We are still the way that the selfless and abundant love of God is carried into the cracks in this beautiful and broken world.
When we make space for Jesus, carrying him with us through the moments and years of our lives, we come to realize all the ways he is carrying us. This interdependence is what we are made for: to carry burdens together, to walk beside one another, to be assured that we are never alone.
He is coming again to remind us that there is great power in our caring and our carrying. In being cared for and being carried. Pregnancy is an expansive metaphor for the ways that loving each other marks and changes us.
Light in the Darkness, you became flesh to dwell among us.
Hidden in holy breath and dividing cells, you grew in the silent darknessand swelling belly of a personal yesto your existenceand our greatest hope.
We wait in expectationfor you to come again to our world,making a journey from cynicism to innocence,from rushing to rest,from busyness to purposeful preparation.
As you grew into human space and form,make space in our world,in our lives,in our bodiesfor more of you.Let it be done in me.Amen.
(Leah Perrault is executive director at Mount St. Francis in Cochrane, Alberta.)
A version of this story appeared in the December 08, 2024, issue of The Catholic Registerwith the headline "Carrying Jesus as baby and Lord".
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