“When he arose, he took the young Child and His mother by night and departed for Egypt” - Saint Matthew 2:14

Before Christ ever preached a sermon or worked a miracle, He fled for His life in the arms of His mother. The Lord of heaven stepped into the world not with security, but with danger shadowing His cradle. The One who made every land had no land to call His own.

St. Jerome reflects on this mystery with piercing simplicity: “He fled to make room for the displaced.” In other words, Christ enters human history on the margins so that no one on the margins may ever be forgotten.

The Nativity Fast shines a holy light on this truth: God Himself has known fear, flight, and foreign soil. He sanctifies the refugee’s story by living it. He dignifies every displaced heart by carrying displacement in His own flesh. Christ knows exile firsthand—geographical, emotional, spiritual.

And so He draws near to all who wander.

To those who have lost homes.

To those who have lost safety.

To those who have lost belonging.

To those who live with quiet grief no one sees.

The Infant Christ does not demand strength from us.

He meets us in our flight, our fragility, our searching.

Show mercy to someone unseen today.

Make space for the overlooked, the weary, the displaced—whether in body or in spirit.

For when we welcome the hidden and the hurting,

we welcome the Christ who once crossed borders in the night.