WHEN Jesus of Nazareth was born in Bethlehem more than two thousand years ago, it was a miracle that he and his mother survived. It was not a happy birth. Saint Luke tells us that it was an awful experience. Mary and Joseph were not allowed into the hostel, and with the birth of Jesus imminent, they had to take shelter in a dirty, smelly cave on a hillside. Jesus was born in dire poverty, surrounded by dirt, animal dung and bad smells, without sanitation, water, light or medical help. The weather then was bitterly cold. They probably had little food. Mary, an unmarried pregnant woman promised in marriage to Joseph, was like an outcasts in Bethlehem. They were unwelcome migrants, barred from getting warm shelter in a place not their own.

It was the worst time for Mary. She was nine months pregnant, and she and Joseph had traveled 90 miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem to register for the census. That was a rough journey of four days and nights on a donkey because of the cruel order of the Roman emperor Augustus. He was an egotistical dictator who abolished Roman democracy and ordered a census of the Roman Empire so he could boast about how many humans were under his harsh rule. Everyone had to register in their ancestral hometown, and Joseph had to do that in Bethlehem, the birthplace of his ancestor, David.