I never gave much thought to the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt. It was like an interlude in the greater story. The horror of Herod ordering the mass murder of baby boys drew all my attention. But in Maria von Trapp’s memoir Yesterday, Today, and Forever, she writes about when the Flight into Egypt began to resonate with her: as she and her family were fleeing Nazi-occupied Austria, one of her daughters needed comforting, so Maria had one of those parenting moments that I think we’ve all had—she opened her mouth to speak, and wasn’t sure what was about to come out of it. She proceeded to tell her daughter the story of another Family who had to flee for the safety and preservation of their lives. This Family, like the Von Trapps, only knew where they were going, but did not how they would survive or what dangers and surprises might be waiting for them along the way. For Maria von Trapp, it led her down years of research and pondering about details of the Holy Family’s life.
Since reading that book, I have caught glimpses of this mystery in scattered readings, prayers, and sermons; the most memorable are from the Seven Sorrows and Joys of St. Joseph and Caryll Houselander’s Reed of God.
The flight into Egypt is the 5th Sorrow and Joy of St. Joseph. Meditations on this obviously differ from person to person, but Joseph’s primary sorrow would be having to leave Judea, and with that all his hopes and expectations of family life with Mary and Jesus. As a carpenter, he would have probably fashioned a cradle back in Nazareth, or maybe little toys, for the anticipated baby. And if you’ve ever traveled somewhere foreign that is especially hostile to your faith, there would of course be sorrow in the concern for safety. But what about Joseph’s joy? I imagine incredible things must have happened when God Himself strode into a land where pagan gods reigned. I imagine they would have scattered, though we don’t know for sure what happened. But, like all saints, Joseph must have marveled and rejoiced at the way God led them through the wilderness and miraculously provided. (Coptic Christians have a lot of wonderful traditions surrounding the Flight into Egypt, if you are interested in learning more.)
The irony—or rather, providence—could not have escaped Joseph, a man of God who knew Scripture, that he was leading his dear ones to safety into pagan Egypt, just as another Joseph, who God also spoke to through dreams, had done hundreds of years before.
In Reed of God, English mystic Houselander speculates that perhaps the Gifts of the Magi were used by Joseph to sell and purchase tools in order to earn a living while in Egypt (though according to some, Mary kept the myrrh for Jesus’ burial). Houselander, in her brilliant way of relating the Gospel to the everyday, also writes:
Everywhere the flight into Egypt goes on: the little home is forsaken, the child in peril, the innocents slain; everywhere the refugees—Jesus, Mary, Joseph—come to us: strangers, foreigners in a strange land from every country… For them all, Our Lady has answered, long ago: “Be it done unto me.”
From the Flight to Egypt, this call to mercy for refugees and the stranger is unmistakable, and one of those things that haunts me. It’s something I don’t pray enough about, and don’t do much about. It makes me uncomfortable in the best sense– something I know I need to listen to and act on.
Yet there is one aspect of the Flight that I can relate to: being told to “go” and “do” without a lot of details. Anyone who has ever been told, led in prayer, or forced to set out on a journey has faced the unknown. My husband often says that following God is like walking through a fog— backwards. We all have the opportunity to make our Flight into Egypt: to listen, pick up our mats, and walk. And without asking a lot of why’s and how’s. To carry only the unanticipated gifts God has given us, and to trust that He has given us just what we need.