My baby, my Jesus, and me

My baby is due to arrive tomorrow. But I was born two weeks late, my husband was two weeks late, and I have a sneaking suspicion that this little boy himself is rather comfy and cozy and has no intention of departing the only home he’s ever known in the next 24 hours. So, we wait.

It’s been glorious to journey through the Advent and Christmas seasons with this little one growing inside of me. There’s been such beautiful, visceral food (or, more specifically, fruit) for thought and prayer as I’ve felt my son’s kicks and longed to hold him in my arms, as I’ve walked with Mary in her own waiting journey and delighted in her Son’s humble arrival. And while the beginning of Ordinary Time—which comes tomorrow—often brings with it a dreary, wintry slump, this approaching season is the most extraordinary one of my life thus far. (Not to mention the most mysterious.)

At Christmas Mass, I was struck to the heart upon receiving Jesus in the Eucharist. For years I have been receiving the Body of Christ at Sunday Mass, even daily for long stretches, and the act of approaching the altar and readying myself to take in that tiny Host has become, humanly speaking, so very commonplace. That walk from my pew to the front of the church and back is a well-worn one, made countless times in churches too many to name. But in these past nine months, I have been carrying someone else with me as I go. And he has been helping me to see almost everything in a new light.

That Christmas morning as I waddled my pregnant self up the aisle and back, it hit me: I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve this Christ Child coming to the world to save me, don’t deserve the precious gift of his Body and Blood in the Eucharist, don’t deserve the riches and splendor of the faith I’ve been given. Yet in some sense, God has made Himself so very ordinary, at least to the naked eye, and so easily and often I approach that seeming ordinariness with complacency, distraction, boredom, even entitlement.

Yet my own baby has helped me see with new eyes.

I don’t deserve Jesus’ own being dwelling within me any more than I deserve this other tiny baby boy growing under my heart and nearing his entrance into the world. It’s another occurrence that’s even more ordinary—a husband and wife coming together and, through their love, bringing forth new life. It’s the biological norm, the way God has wonderfully designed humanity, something we don’t bat an eye at. But, well, now it’s happened to me, now I’m the wife, and it’s my husband and I who have participated in the creation of a unique and unrepeatable soul with the help of God. And to me, in my quiet, hidden, little world, that is anything but ordinary.

We hoped and prayed for it, Mark and I, but we did not deserve it. This baby is the natural outcome of our love, yes, but still I consider him no less of a miracle. I am in awe of his existence, overcome with gratitude and wonder at God’s gift to us, filled to the brim with anticipation as we wait day by day for signs of his coming. I can’t possibly think of my quiet, hidden, little son as ordinary.

So back to that Christmas morning walk up and down the aisle.

Jesus, hidden in that little host, became substantially present to me as the supernatural, extraordinary, miraculous outcome of some simple words I’ve heard uttered thousands of times. Of a formula I could recite in my sleep, a choreography of sitting and standing and kneeling I’ve danced for years. Yet thanks to that Christmas grace from God—and a little help from my own child—I couldn’t possibly think of that Eucharist as ordinary.

It’s been over 25 years since my First Communion, but just nine months since I spied that little line on my pregnancy test. And this new creation I’ll soon labor to bring into the world is helping me to see with childlike faith, with a fresh gaze. Jesus in the Eucharist is a miracle hidden behind an ordinary piece of bread, as the baby in my womb is a miracle hidden within me as I go about my ordinary life. As we continue on our way, so very often marked by uneventful, unremarkable day by day monotony, let us ask Jesus to allow us to glimpse behind the veil at the extraordinary miracles right under our nose. And may this season of Ordinary Time be anything but.