Las Posadas and the Welcoming Innkeeper

David Gayes currently serves as an English Language teacher at the Tolton Center in Chicago. He also serves at Casa Juan Diego, an after school program.

I love the Mexican tradition during the fourth week of Advent called Las Posadas. “Las Posadas” literally means “the inns.” During the nine days leading up to Christmas, through music and song, communities reenact the story of Mary and Joseph looking for a place to stay. Two people dress up as Joseph and Mary, who often rides on a donkey, and look for an innkeeper to take them in for the night. Every member of the community takes a part in the story, singing the dialogue between Joseph and Mary and the innkeepers. The people who sing the part of Joseph and Mary remain outside, walking from house to house while the people who play the different innkeepers are inside, rejecting them. In the last of many exchanges between the groups, Mary and Joseph are finally given a place to stay for the night, and everyone enters the “inn” for a lively celebration.

Image of a traditional "Las Posadas" celebration. 

(Photo from universaldomainexchanged.com)

Here is a link to Las Posadas sung in Spanish, with Spanish subtitles: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6nwzpI-6UE

English Translation:

Mary and Joseph:

In the name of Heaven
I beg you for lodging,
for she cannot walk
my beloved wife.          

                                                       Innkeeper:

                                                       This is not an inn 
                                                       so keep going 
                                                       I cannot open 
                                                      you may be a rogue.

Mary and Joseph:

Don't be inhuman;
Have mercy on us.
The God of the heavens
will reward you for it.

                                                       Innkeeper:

                                                       You can go on now 
                                                       and don't bother us, 
                                                       because if I become annoyed 
                                                       I'll give you a trashing.

Mary and Joseph:

We are worn out
coming from Nazareth.
I am a carpenter,
Joseph by name.

                                                       Innkeeper:

                                                       I don't care about your name: 
                                                       Let me sleep, 
                                                       because I already told you 
                                                       we shall not open up.

Mary and Joseph:

I'm asking you for lodging
dear man of the house
Just for one night
for the Queen of Heaven.

                                                       Innkeeper:

                                                       Well, if it's a queen 
                                                       who solicits it, 
                                                       why is it at night 
                                                       that she travels so alone?

Mary and Joseph:

My wife is Mary
She's the Queen of Heaven
and she's going to be the mother
of the Divine Word.

                                                       Innkeeper:

                                                       Are you Joseph? 
                                                       Your wife is Mary? 
                                                       Enter, pilgrims; 
                                                       I did not recognize you.

Mary and Joseph:

May God pay, gentle folks,
your charity,
and thus heaven heap
happiness upon you.

                                                       Innkeeper:

                                                       Blessed is the house 
                                                       that shelters this day 
                                                       the pure Virgin, 
                                                       the beautiful Mary.

Everyone in unison:

Enter, holy pilgrims,

receive this corner,

for though this dwelling is poor,

I offer it with all my heart.                                       

Oh, graced pilgrim,

oh, most beautiful Mary.

I offer you my soul

so you may have lodging.              

Humble pilgrims,

Jesus, Mary and Joseph,

I give my soul for them

And my heart as well.              

Let us sing with joy,

all bearing in mind

that Jesus, Joseph and Mary

honor us by having come.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I am moved by the joyful welcoming of Joseph and Mary in the Las Posadas tradition. After being rejected many times, Joseph and Mary finally encounter an innkeeper who accepts them and recognizes the beauty of their situation. The final innkeeper welcomes them unconditionally and commits to offer himself to help them.

“I give my soul for them

And my heart as well.

Let us sing with joy”

He does not turn them away, but rather welcomes the strangers, offering a place to spend the night.

I can relate to this final innkeeper in my year of service with Dominican Volunteers USA. I teach English as a second language with the Tolton Center in Chicago. The people with whom I serve are strangers to the United States and to American culture. Many have been rejected—some having only recently arrived in the United States, while others have been here for a while. They have a desire to not just survive, but to thrive. They want to help their kids get into good high schools and colleges. They want to learn English, so they can understand their bosses’ directions and move forward in their place of employment. They seek to make American friends, understand American culture, and become full, active United States citizens.

David (center) with coworkers Ana and Peggy (left) and three English language students.

Our job at Tolton is to be welcoming innkeepers. We offer free classes and accept anyone who wants to learn, regardless of immigration status. We strive to create a warm, fun, nonthreatening environment with many games and activities. We try to respect every student as an individual with his or her own story and personal goals. We seek to create a place where no individual who wants to learn English will be turned away.

I am grateful for the people at Tolton for modeling for me the role of a hospitable innkeeper. I am thankful for my clients who openly and enthusiastically share their stories. I am appreciative of Dominican Volunteers USA for giving me this amazing opportunity.

In this Christmas Season may we learn to be welcoming innkeepers, giving our hearts and souls in service to the strangers in our midst. 

David's student shares pictures of her grandchildren. David helps her 

learn English so she can communicate with them. 

A Bronx Nativity: Siena House at Christmastime

Tina Cisarik has shared ministry at Siena House this year.  Read on for her thoughts on Nativity!

The term “nativity”, which comes from the Latin word natal (to be born), is not unique to the birth of Jesus. In fact, it can be said that we each have been part of our own nativity scene, whether in a tight manager, a well-stocked hospital unit or a tempered pool of water on the living room floor. For the past four months, I’ve been fortunate enough to be part of a constantly transitioning nativity scene nestled in the Highbridge neighborhood of the South Bronx.

Home to twenty-seven pregnant women and women with young children, Siena House, a transitional shelter for homeless women and infants, has embraced hundreds of mothers and babies since opening her arms in 1990. Fueled with the passion of empowering marginalized women, Siena provides resources and support for job readiness, permanent housing and parenting skills, along with assuring a safe residential environment for both mother and child. While the shelter has seen great change in the past twenty-four years, a special event has withstood nearly two and a half decades: The Annual Siena House Christmas Celebration.

Tina poses with a former resident of Siena House.

Each year, staff and community members work together to create a harmonious, memorable Christmas season for our residents, including a visit from Santa Claus, baked goodies and a trimmed tree with gifts underneath. As a self-proclaimed holiday elf, I’ve been navigating through the heaps of paperwork, handmade ornaments and countdown chains with great joy, resting assured that this season will bring much magic to those who partake. However, the pile of clothing and toys that is beginning to accumulate in my office has been the main focus of my attention. Made possible by the contributions of neighboring parishes, Girl Scout troops and college students at Fordham University, I’ve been sorting onesies and Tonka Trunks by the bunch. Aside from stirring up my own nostalgia, I have found the sight of such generosity to be inexplicable. There is something remarkable about individuals traveling from near and far to bring forth gifts to children who may otherwise go without.

Throughout this process, I’ve often paused to ask myself where such generosity comes from. What ignites people to maintain the idea that Christmas is the “season of giving”? What causes the heart to want to lend of itself in the spirit of the holidays? Perhaps such generosity stems from recognizing that the humble nativity scenes depicted in the Gospel stories are not far off from our own. Perhaps it comes from understanding that, had Mary been wandering around New York City looking for vacancy, Siena would have given her a place to rest. Perhaps it comes from the fact that, like the children of Siena House, Christ, too, came with an infant face. 

It’s true: the Messiah was not birthed from a swirl of wind and flakes of silver. There was no grand entrance, no royal purple linens upon which to lie. This was not for the lack of God’s ability. This was the same God who parted a traitorous sea, who dried the land after a flooding and painted the sky with a rainbow of fellowship. But, God chose to become human in the womb of a young mother without a place to rest. God chose to reveal the Sacred Presence in the body of an infant swaddled in hay. God chose humility and poverty over regality and gleam. And yet this child, wrapped in dusty cloth against his mother’s chest, immediately became a figure of persistent compassion. Behold, the Child of God, Root of Jesse, Prince of Peace. The titles are much more prestigious than the birthing scene depicted.

I’m continuously reminded of this as I stare at the stack of stuffed animals waiting to be cuddled and pajamas waiting to be worn. There was no telltale sign that the infant Jesus, helpless in nature, would be the one to repurpose the Covenant of Love. And yet, people of faith  - guided only by a star - traveled through the depths of evening and into unfamiliar territory to lay gifts upon the baby’s feet. They invested in this new child with both affection and tokens of appreciation, knowing all the while he’d be the one to give back. While these offerings of frankincense, gold and myrrh were quite different from the Little Tyke’s toys I’ve begun to wrap, the messages they provided remain the same: We accept you, we honor you, we love you. You are our child, too.

A community member stitched together over 90 small teddy bears to be given to the babies during the Christmas celebration

With Christmas around the corner, I ask of each of you to embody the questions that Siena has so loving caused me to ponder: How can you recall the origin of the holiday in every child you pass and delight in those who retain a child-like spirit? How can you bring to life the humility and generosity ever-present this season with both your words and your actions? And mostly, how can you remember the oneness that you share with the Messiah who, like all of us, started off quite small?

Tina handmade special ornaments for each of the Siena women and their children to be hung on their community Christmas tree.

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The wolf will live with the lamb,

the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling together;
and a little child will lead them.
Isaiah 11:6, NIV