The arms and the Manger.

She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

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If there's one tiny detail that doesn't ring familiar to me, a woman who has given birth, about the Gospel accounts of the nativity, it's the "laid him in a manger" part.   

I acknowledge that everyone's experience is different, but the last thing I wanted to do in the first minutes and hours with a healthy newborn was to put the baby down anywhere at all, with or without swaddling clothes.  I was always pretty fixated on the irretrievability of the first moments: those liquid eyes open and searching for another human face to take in, to take possession of; those tiny ears, listening and alert for the familiar, now unmuffled voices; the tender skin, wanting human warmth.  

I did have practical matters to attend to eventually, and so I let the baby go---and I had the good fortune to be able to put the baby in others' arms; I know not everyone gets to do that, depending on the circumstances of birth, but it's certainly where I wanted to put him and where I felt he belonged.

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From the very beginning Christians have taken note that the place Mary chose to put the baby was a food bin.  Foreshadowing for sure, that this child would grow to say things like "my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink."  The food bin was handy, and chances are good that she and her husband were not entirely aware of the prophetic nature of the action; the whole story was (perhaps? probably?) not unspooled to them as of yet, despite the angel, despite the dream.

But they knew the Child was divine, uncreated, holy beyond every thing and person that their people ritually and faithfully set apart as holy; they knew that.

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I have to rely on Wikipedia a bit for a review of the relevant art traditions. 

The Byzantine depiction of the Nativity, which arose in the 6th century (after images of the child alone with ox and ass and images of the Adoration of the Magi),  includes both mother and child and depicts a postpartum scene that feels more familiar to me.  The mother reclines with the infant next to her, and Joseph rests nearby.  (Sometimes, separately, midwives are shown bathing the baby).   

 

Nativity by a Bohemian master, c. 1350.  Public domain

 

The Western traditional image of Mary and Joseph kneeling in adoration of the infant appeared by 1300.

 

Missal of Eberhard von Greiffenklau, Nativity, c. 1446.  Public domain

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Clearly when we think about the scene we can consider it in merely practical terms.  At some point, the couple probably had to do something that required all four hands, and they had to put the baby somewhere.    In the kind of place that needs a feed bin, any surface raised above the floor is likely to be cleaner than the floor itself, so the food bin is perhaps the obvious "putting place" for a baby if you're having to work under those conditions.  Foreshadowing aside.

But let's think about the notion of the Virgin's adoration of her child. for a moment.  Perhaps it's a pious invention by 13th-century artists and iconographers, and reinforced by the influence of published descriptions of the visions of St. Bridget of Sweden.   But it's also consistent with the Gospel story:  she had the message of an angel stating Who her child was, and Joseph had received his own message.  

She herself, though thoroughly filled with grace, a pinnacle of creation, still, a created being; beheld the Uncreated clothed in flesh.  She knew what mere humans are meant to do with Holiness.   To adore it; and, by necessity, to separate it, at least ritually, from what is created, what is not as holy.   

Ordinary mothers everywhere are able to adore their newborn children best, in the most natural and human way possible, in the way the infant's nature best responds, with the infant in their own arms.  This is natural adoration, from one creature to another, a personal connection, eye looking to eye, skin-to-skin, the little lips moving and the little voice crowing in response to the mother's encouraging voice.

And of course Mary could do that too.  She is the natural mother of the Christ, the Theotokos.  She must have adored her child in this natural way.  And we have the Byzantine icons to remind us of that.

But something else separates them in a way that Mary would also have known.  What do you do with the holiest things?  You set them apart.  They are wrapped up behind a veil and placed out of reach.  Catholic tradition identifies the pregnant Mary as a type of tabernacle or ark herself, containing the Bread of Life, containing the Law; but for all that she is also a human, and the grace God filled her with would have moved her to adore the Divine, step back from the Sacred to look upon it from the necessary distance.

So, because she willed what God willed, she might well have detached (with difficulty) the tiny fists from her mantle, wrapped him up and laid him down on the wood, drawn back onto her knees.  It might, if the baby were awake, have felt distressing (have you seen an infant on its back, eyes closed or open, searching with open birdlike mouth, first tentatively, then frantically?  have you been its mother?)  It might have been quite brief, because physical needs of the mother-and-infant pair cannot wait forever.  We aren't sure whether she adored the way the Western art shows her.  But it might have happened in this way.  She knew Who he was, after all.  And we have the words of the Gospel:  She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

Why did she lay him in the manger? In the plain words of the Gospel,  Because there was no room for them in the inn.  

That's the other part of the foreshadowing.  Because the hospitality of the world had rejected her,  the Tabernacle, the Ark, and (more to the point) what she contained, she could only adore -- relate, as a created being, appropriately to Divinity ---  by interrupting the (natural, good!) maternal drive to protect, by laying him upon the wood, setting him out for food.

The swaddling, the setting-down -- it may have been entirely practical, but it was because there was no room for them in the inn, and we know what that foreshadows.  So:  Mary's act of will, and not just where she put him, is foreshadowing too.

Comments

[mandamum]

I read or heard something once that suggested that "manger" might not have meant, as we think of it, a small box. It might have been a bigger area filled with hay, and the whole family might have been sleeping in that hay, so to lay him there might just have meant "as opposed to a bed in the inn" and have been *with* his mother rather than *away from* her. One alternative understanding.

[Melanie]

I love this reflection.

In regards to mandamum's comment, I saw something similar come across my screen this week. I don't know how solid the scholarship is, but it's interesting that there's a debate.

https://www.psephizo.com/biblical-studies/once-more-jesus-was-not-born-in-a-stable/?fbclid=IwAR2SOx0abs-qaY3MbVVFlIiLxmgh1pttyw7gUwQWdvXF9ccaU2WOUqyf29o

[bearing]

Melanie, that’s really interesting (and a lot of it rings true).

I know most of the “it wasn’t a stable” protests I have seen tend to insist on it being a cave, and then draw some parallel between that and the new tomb.

Whether the “inn” was an inn or not, I maintain that the “no room in the(somewhere intended for hospitality” is a meaningful passage—there just aren’t any wasted words.

I would like to see a crèche/nativity scene built after the plan put forth in the article! Wouldn’t that be a great diorama-type project for an interested kid?