The Nativity of Our Lord

To all Ye faithful readers of this blog :),

Here are my greetings to you!

Unto us a Child is born:
Let heaven and earth rejoice!
‘Tis the night of the great Mystery:
A Son is given to us!

The golden star shone
Above a lonely stable
Unto us a Child is born:
Let heaven and earth rejoice!
Through Him, evil is forgiven
He is the salutary Victim,
The living water quenching our thirst!
Lo! All the bells were ringing…

Unto us a Child is born!

-Geneviève Duhamelet

-------

And I would also love to post something more from a very good meditation, Excerpts from the Midnight Cave by Father Frederick William Faber, though I can't do it today or tomorrow because I don't know why, I'm so pressed for time =D.

Pray for me as I will for you and all the best wishes to thee.

Have a Holy and Blessed Christmas.

And here's a very good medition from another book, alone with God by By Father J. Heyrman, S.J.

December 25
CHRISTMAS DAY

1. We kneel by Mary’s side. She herself, says Holy Scripture, has “wrapped the Child in swaddling clothes and laid Him in a manger”, full of love and respect. Remembering the angel’s thrilling message, she now adores the “Son of the Most High”, her very own Child.

2. Petition: Impart to us, O Mary, some of thy faith, thy hope and thy love for this Child born of thee for our salvation.

I. God Has Become Man

In the inexhaustible subject of the Christmas mystery we consider first of all the most amazing aspect: God infinite, and omnipotent, has become man.

The Blessed Trinity is the “original mystery” inside the very Divinity, that “silence without modes, by whose incomprehensibility all loving souls find themselves overcome” (Ruusbroeck). The action of creating makes the Three reach “outside”, reach “other beings” in which They are unfathomably present; but outside of the order of creatures, “in Themselves,” They have a being that utterly transcends the created universe.

Now, by the incarnation God joins unto His Divinity a human soul and body: “The Word is made flesh,” says St John, the Son of God is now also a man. Henceforth He exists no more apart from His human nature. God can effect nothing more thorough than this in the order of creatures or in the history of mankind. When He was born, He entered the world of creatures. In that weak speechless little Child, in all things equal to any human child, “dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead” (Col.2:9). Nay, St Paul uses the adverb “corporeally”.

An ancient Latin hymn, in the style of St Augustine, has it:

O Most High, Thou liest there
In what a homely stable!
Thou, who mad’st the glowing stars
Shiver’st with cold in a manger!

Omnipotence has become weak,
Immensity is tiny,
The Deliverer lies in bonds,
The Eternal One is born.

He who robes angels in brightness
Is wrapped in swaddling bands;
Lo! The Ruler of the heavens
Is fed at His Mother’s breast.

The refrain: How wonderful are Thy works,
O Jesus, which Thou didst for man:
In boundless love for the exile
Whom sin drove our of Paradise.

II. God is Love

“God is love”: such is the very definition of God given by St John, who also writes, “God was made Flesh.” Love craves for union, irresistibly; overthrows all obstacles, leaps over all chasms. Infinite Love, “with whom nothing is impossible,” unites by the Incarnation what appeared impossible to unite: the Creator and the creature, the All-Holy and “sinful flesh” (Rom.8:3). The Word of God now joins the ranks of sinful men. We fail to understand: we can only “believe the charity which God hath for us” (1 Jn.4:16). But if mere human love not seldom goes beyond the bounds of reason we should expect God’s Love to surpass all understanding. God’s Love is not, like man’s, a response to the attractions of some object lovable in itself; It is absolutely prevenient: and renders its object worthy of love.

III. Mary Believed in That Love

We are kneeling by the side of our Lady, joining her as she adores the Child. She was the first to believe in God’s Love. “Blessed art thou, that hast believed,” exclaimed Elizabeth when greeting her. We call her blessed also for having been the first to behold “God made visible” and to believe. He was indeed visible, but at the same time so little, and so weak. All there was in Him, He had drawn from her substance, and He was dependent on her for everything He needed. Yet, as she gazed on Him, there shown from her eyes something more than what sparkles in every new mother’s eyes: “You treasure, you are mine.” Mary’s look was an act of self-surrender: “I am all thine!” In “the body of our lowness” (Phil.3:21), her faith and her love perceived and adored her Creator and her Lord. She loved and adored Him perfectly on behalf of all of us.

Prayer: May the oblation of this day’s festival be pleasing to Thee, O Lord, that by Thy bountiful grace we may, through this sacred intercourse, be found conformed to Him, in whom our substance is united to Thee: and who with Thee liveth … (Secret, 1st Mass of Christmas).

Remember, O Creator Lord,
That in the Virgin’s sacred womb
Thou wast conceived, and of her flesh
Didst our mortality assume.
-Jesu Redemptor, Vespers of today.

Jesus, Mary, I love Thee, Save Souls!