Helena & Najm

"Like me, you were late coming.  The shepherds were here long before; even the cattle.  They had joined the chorus of angels before you were on your way.  For you the primordial discipline of the heavens was relaxed and a new defiant light blazed amid the disconcerted stars.

          How laboriously you came, taking sights and calculating, where the shepherds had run barefoot!  How odd you looked on the road, attended by what outlandish liveries, laden with such preposterous gifts!

          You came at length to the final stage of your pilgrimage and the great star stood still above you.  What did you do? You stopped to call on King Herod. Deadly exchange of compliments in which began that unended war of mobs and magistrates against the innocent!

          Yet you came, and were not turned away.  You too found room before the manger.  Your gifts were not needed, but they were accepted and put carefully away, for they were brought with love.  In that new order of charity that had just come to life, there was room for you, too.  You were not lower in the eyes of the holy family than the ox or the ass.

          You are my especial patrons, and patrons of all late-comers, of all who have a tedious journey to make to the truth, of all who are confused with knowledge and speculation, of all who through politeness make themselves partners in guilt, of all who stand in danger by reason of their talents.

          For His sake who did not reject your curious gifts, pray always for the learned, the oblique, the delicate.  Let them not be quite forgotten at the Throne of God when the simple come into their kingdom."

From Evelyn Waugh's Helena, a prayer made by the Empress to the Three Wise Men before finding the Holy Cross