flight into egypt – Catholic Sistas

Two Incredible Moves

Nothing goes together quite like military life and moving. The longest my husband and I have ever lived anywhere is one year. My stuff hasn’t been in one place for more than a year since 2011. The transient life can really get under my skin sometimes. There are times that I really just want one neighborhood, one set of friends, one parish, one job, one doctor, one grocery store… the list goes on.

Focus on the struggles, and it can be unbearable. Last Advent and Christmas Season, however, I was inspired by another wife who found herself moving a lot: Mama Mary. Her journey on the road to Bethlehem and her flight to Egypt.

After all my moves, I can’t just skim over these passages anymore – The Journey to Bethlehem and The Flight to Egypt hold a special place in my heart now. They inspire me with their witness of trust and totally abandonment to God’s will – something that I pray for in my own vocation.

The Road to Bethlehem

Oh man, pregnancy. What a beautiful time – and oh goodness but I was nauseous, sick, sore, the list goes on. We moved down to Charleston and I was pregnant, navigating all the exhaustion and food aversions of first trimester. It’s so uncomfortable traveling long distances that pregnant. There was no position I could sit in and be comfortable, and I had motion sickness something fierce.

I can’t help but to be struck by our Mama Mary traveling in third trimester (which was my worst trimester) to Bethlehem. It’s overwhelming to think about all the facets of this journey. This journey for them was hard. Physically exhausting. Emotionally exhausting.

I think about how hard these journeys must have been on Mary’s body. How Mary had to deliver her child away from her parents, away from her mom, St. Anne. Yes, she had St. Joseph, but I know if I had to pick between my husband and my mama to be there for labor and delivery, I’d pick my mama. Every day of the week.

How could she endure such a hard journey at such a critical time?

The Flight to Egypt

For our next move, we had baby in tow. Mamas, I don’t know how y’all move with children. It’s stressful, hectic, and overwhelming. You end up packing up just the thing your baby decides she needs for the trip. Everything is lost, all over the place, naps are messed up, overnight sleep is messed up, eating patterns are messed up, everything is messed up. We moved up to Norfolk with a baby screaming the whole way there.

Moving with a baby, I connect it with the Holy Family fleeing to Egypt. How there was no idea of how things would be taken care of. When would they be settled? When would they come home? Where was home?

How do you make such a dramatic move with a newborn?

Radical Trust

The answer to the questions is so simple and clear, but so hard to live out: radical trust.

If we have anything we can learn from the Holy Family, it is total abandonment to God’s call. Both times they gave everything to God. Just look at St. Joseph’s response to the call to go to Egypt in Matthew 2:13-15. They just went. They didn’t say anything. They didn’t complain like I always do about having to pack things and leave all my favorite places and people behind.

Finally, as I still encounter moving stickers, unpacked boxes, everything in all its newness, I contemplate the Holy Family in Egypt. The bible doesn’t say a whole lot about that time. But they would’ve been foreigners in a strange place. They would’ve started a new life. Worked, raised Jesus, form community.

Although the bible never explicitly states it, I have to believe that they approached it with peace, with love, with trust.

As my husband starts his new job, and I work to raise my baby girl, and we all work to find our place in this community, meditating on the Holy Family in Egypt is a great solace.

God has called my family and me to this life. He has called all of our families to a myriad of crazy situations. For all of us, there are moments that are hectic, stressful, chaotic, difficult, messy.

Sometimes Moms Need Their Mother, Too

Some 2000 years ago a young woman gave her yes to God. With that yes came great joy, because when you truly follow God’s will for your life you are inevitably joyful – not to be confused with the modern notion of happiness. That yes, however, came with a price-tag of great suffering.

Mary has a servant’s heart. As a young woman, newly pregnant, she walked 80-90 miles to help her aging cousin Elizabeth. Not an easy task while pregnant. She then had to undertake her own long journey to Bethlehem with Joseph, at which point she was heavily pregnant, and they were unable to secure a room. They found shelter in a stable. By today’s standards that would be tragic, but that hardship was tempered with joy because that stable became the birthplace of Jesus!

When you look at Mary’s life overall, those physical trials can seem trivial since it was not long after Jesus’ birth that the first of her Sorrows came to pass. In Luke 2: 22-35, we read about the Presentation of the Child Jesus in the Temple and Simeon’s prophecy. He foretold that Mary’s soul would be pierced by a sword, saying, “Behold this child is set for the fall, and for the resurrection of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be contradicted; and thy own soul a sword shall pierce, that, out of many hearts, thoughts may be revealed.”

Simeon’s prophecy was the first of the Seven Sorrows that are a traditional devotion to Mary. The traditional Sorrows are: Presentation in the Temple, Flight into Egypt, Loss of Jesus for three days, Way to Calvary, Crucifixion, Descent from the Cross, and Burial of Jesus. Given my own experience with loss, I can see another facet of sorrow that would have come hand-in-hand for Mary during the flight into Egypt: Herod’s order to slaughter the children we know as the Holy Innocents. While the flight into Egypt and the difficulties of starting over in a country where they had no friends and didn’t speak the language would have been difficult, the lives of those children, slaughtered because her Son was born, would weigh heavily on her. When they were finally able return to Nazareth, the lack of children within a year or two of Jesus’ age would be painfully obvious.

We don’t hear much about their lives until the next Sorrow- Losing the Child Jesus at the Temple. How they must have panicked when they realized that Jesus was not in the group with which they were travelling. Again, this suffering was tempered by the joy of finding him, but I’m sure any parent can attest that that moment of sheer terror never completely leaves you. This Sorrow is the last of the ‘easy’ trials. In a few years Mary’s world will be turned upside down.

In a short period of time, Mary would experience the pain and loss that make her the most excellent intercessor for women, especially those who have lost children or who have had to deal with the diagnosis of an incurable disease that will affect their child’s entire life.

Mary would have heard Pilate’s sentence: scourging, crown of thorns, and finally crucifixion. I’m sure that those words, that moment, burned into her brain, just as hearing the doctor say my daughter’s heart was slowly giving out is a moment I cannot forget.

While she may not have been present for the actual scourging and crowning of thorns, we know that Jesus met with her on the Road to Calvary and she would’ve seen the damage done to his body – suffering from which she couldn’t protect Him. How difficult it is for a mother to see her child suffer – and how much more so when the innocent suffers for the misdeeds of others.

Mary was at the foot of the Cross where she would’ve been witness to the cruelty of the soldiers and the jeering crowd. It was from that vantage point that she watched her baby die. I was blessed in that I was able to hold my daughter, to sing to her as she left us, but, Mary did not even have that comfort. She could do nothing but watch helplessly.

The sixth Sorrow is the Descent from the Cross. Mary was finally able to hold Jesus in her arms and say her goodbyes. She must have wept bitterly.

The final Sorrow in many ways is the hardest to handle: the Burial of Jesus. There is a finality to burial that is difficult to bear. You can no longer hope that there’s been a mistake…you know you will never see your living child again in this world, and Heaven is a long way from your mind when you are saying that final goodbye to your baby.

For Mary, all of her Sorrows were tempered and balanced by joy. The sad stable became the joyous location of our Savior’s birth. She lost and then found Jesus in the Temple. Even the sorrow of the crucifixion and burial are swiftly followed by the Resurrection.

I have had many dark moments in the days since my daughter died. Today would’ve been my daughter’s second birthday; Memorial Day will mark two years since she left us. Mary has been my constant companion on this journey even when I’m not aware of it. I realized while writing this that the due date for my current pregnancy is the Feast of the Sorrows of Mary, September 15th. Mary is uniquely qualified to walk with us mothers through our joys and sorrows. Her mission is always to bring us to her Son, Jesus, and by uniting our sorrows with hers, we are transported to the foot of the Cross.

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The Blessed Virgin Mary grants seven graces to the souls who honor her daily by meditating on her tears and sorrows. This devotion was passed on by St. Bridget.

The Seven Graces:

I will grant peace to their families.
They will be enlightened about the divine mysteries.
I will console them in their pains and I will accompany them in their work.
I will give them as much as they ask for as long as it does not oppose the adorable will of my divine Son or the sanctification of their souls.
I will defend them in their spiritual battles with the infernal enemy and I will protect them at every instant of their lives.
I will visibly help them at the moment of their death, they will see the face of their Mother.
I have obtained (This Grace) from my divine Son, that those who propagate this devotion to my tears and dolors, will be taken directly from this earthly life to eternal happiness since all their sins will be forgiven and my Son and I will be their eternal consolation and joy.

The Seven Sorrows:

The prophecy of Simeon. (St. Luke 2: 34, 35)
The flight into Egypt. (St. Matthew 2:13,14)
The loss of the Child Jesus in the temple. (St. Luke 2: 43-45)
The meeting of Jesus and Mary on the Way of the Cross.
The Crucifixion and Death of Jesus.
The taking down of the Body of Jesus from the Cross.
The burial of Jesus.

(Say one Hail Mary while meditating on each Sorrow)
The Hail Mary: Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen