Kataluma

I am fascinated by this insight, especially given what I just taught about the Third Epiphany at Cana:

That there was “no place for them in the kataluma”  therefore may be an oblique and tactful reference to the awkwardness of Joseph and Mary’s situation. Typically a man would return to his father’s house in his home town to complete the marriage if the betrothal took place elsewhere. However, in Mary and Joseph’s case it was not appropriate for them to use the kataluma. Mary was already pregnant. The relatives of Joseph therefore fulfilled their obligation to offer hospitality, but also recognized the apparently shameful situation of Mary and Joseph by offering them shelter in the warm, adjacent back room which was the cave used for stabling and storage.

This understanding of kataluma also adds weight to Luke’s use of the word for the room where the Last Supper was held. Note that Jesus’ words about “In my father’s house are many rooms” takes place during the Last Supper. In a kataluma often used as a bridal suite, Jesus refers to the kataluma that a bridegroom would build for his bride and refers to his “coming again to take them to himself”. This affirms and corroborates the nuptial imagery that occurs throughout the gospels–in which in his sayings and parables Jesus regularly refers to himself as the bridegroom and we, as the church, his bride.

I therefore do not think it is stretching this too far to see that Our Lord’s birth in Bethlehem is like the betrothal of the bridegroom and the bride. He “comes to his own but his own receive him not” His incarnation is his betrothal to his bride the church and this is theologically why he does not use the kataluma. But he will come again to take us to himself and then we will be with him at the marriage supper of the Lamb–and finally in the room he has prepared for us in his Father’s house: which is why St John in Revelation pictures heaven as the marriage supper of the Lamb and the consummation of the marriage of he bridegroom with his bride–the Church.

https://dwightlongenecker.com/the-true-meaning-of-the-inn-in-bethlehem/