“The Time of No Room”

Into this world, this demented inn, in which there is absolutely no room for him at all, Christ has come uninvited. But because he cannot be at home in it–because he is out of place in it, and yet must be in it–his place is with those others who do not belong, who are rejected because they are regarded as weak; and with those who are discredited, who are denied the status of persons, and are tortured, exterminated. With those for whom there is no room, Christ is present in this world.

–Thomas Merton, in Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas (p. 278)