The Seventh Day of Christmas

MEDITATION VII: Jesus weeping.

The tears of the Infant Jesus were very different from those of other new-born babes: they weep through pain; Jesus did not weep from pain, but through compassion for us and through love: "They weep because of suffering, Christ because of compassion," says St. Bernard. Tears are a great sign of love. Therefore did the Jews say when they saw the Savior weeping for the death of Lazarus: Behold how he loved him (John 11:36). Thus also might the angels have said on beholding the tears of the Infant Jesus: "Behold how he loves them." Behold how our God loves men; since for the love of them we see him made man, become an Infant, and shedding tears.

Jesus wept and offered to his Father his tears to obtain for us the pardon of our sins. "These tears," says St. Ambrose, "washed away my sins;" by his cries and tears he implored mercy for us who were condemned to eternal death, and thus he appeased the indignation of his Father. Oh, how eloquently did the tears of this divine little one plead in our behalf! Oh, how precious were they to God! It was then that the Father caused the angels to proclaim that he made peace with men, and received them into his favor: And on earth peace to men of good will (Luke 2:14).

Jesus wept through love, but he also wept through sorrow at the thought that so many sinners, even after all his tears and the blood he should shed for their salvation, would yet continue to despise his grace. But who would be so hard-hearted, on seeing an Infant God weeping for our sins, as not to weep also, and to detest those sins that have made this loving Savior shed so many tears? Oh, let us not increase the sorrows of this innocent babe; but let us console him by uniting our tears to his! Let us offer to God the tears of his Son, and let us beseech him for their sake to forgive us!

Affections and Prayers.

My beloved Infant, while you were weeping in the stable of Bethlehem, you wert thinking of me; beholding even then my sins, which were the cause of your tears. And have I, then, O my Jesus! instead of consoling you by my love and gratitude at the thought of what you have suffered to save me, have I increased your sorrow and the cause of your tears? If I had sinned less, you would have wept less. Weep, oh, weep, for you have cause to weep in seeing such great ingratitude of men to your great love. But since you weep, weep also for me; your tears are my hope. I also will weep for the offences I have committed against you, O my Redeemer! I hate them, I detest them, I repent of them with my whole heart. I weep for all those days and those wretched nights of mine in which I lived as your enemy and deprived of your beautiful face; but what would my tears avail, O my Jesus, without yours!

Eternal Father, I offer you the tears of the Infant Jesus; for their sake forgive me. And you, my dearest Savior, offer to him all the tears that you shed for me during your life, and with them appease his anger against me. I beseech you also, O my Love, to soften my heart by these tears, and to inflame it with your holy love. Oh that I could from this day forth console you by my love for all the pain I have caused you by offending you! Grant, therefore, O Lord! that the days that remain to me in this life may not any more be spent in offending you, but only in weeping for the offences I have committed against you, and in loving you with all the affections of my soul.

O Mary, I beseech you, by that tender compassion which you so often felt at the sight of the Infant Jesus in tears, obtain for me a constant sorrow for the offences which I have so ungratefully been guilty of against him.

The Sixth Day of Christmas

MEDITATION VI: Jesus sleeping.

Very short and painful were the slumbers of the Infant Jesus. A manger was his cradle, straw was his bed, and Straw his pillow; so that Jesus was constantly interrupted in his sleep by the hardness of this rough and painful little bed, and by the severe cold of the cave. Notwithstanding all this, nature succumbing to its wants, the sweet babe from time to time slept amidst his

sufferings.

But the sleep of Jesus differed very much from that of other children. The slumbers of other children are useful for the preservation of life, but not for the operations of the soul, because the soul, being buried in sleep with the senses, cannot then work; but such was not the sleep of Jesus Christ: I sleep, and my heart watches (Cant. 5:2). His body was asleep, but his soul was watching; because in Jesus there was united the person of the Word, who could not sleep, nor be influenced by the slumber of the senses. The Holy Infant slept therefore; but while he slept he thought of all the sufferings he was to endure for our sake during all his life and at his death. He thought of the labors he was to undergo in Egypt and in Nazareth during his miserable and despised life; he thought more particularly on the scourges, the thorns, the ignominies, the agonies, and on that miserable death that he should at last suffer upon the cross; and whilst he was sleeping he offered all this to his Eternal Father to obtain for us pardon and salvation; so that while our Savior was sleeping he was meriting for us and appeasing his Father, and obtaining graces for us.

Let us now beseech him, by the merit of his blessed slumbers, to deliver us from the deadly slumber of sinners who unhappily sleep in the death of sin, forgetful of God and of his love; and to give us instead the blessed sleep of the holy spouse, of which he said, Stir not up, nor make the beloved to wake till she please (Cant. 2:7). This is the sleep that God gives to his beloved souls, which is none other, as St. Basil says, "but the most profound oblivion of all things;" and this is when the soul forgets all earthly things, to attend only to God and to the things that concern his glory.

Affections and Prayers.

My beloved and holy Infant, you sleep, and oh, how do your slumbers enamor me! With others sleep is the emblem of death; but in you it is the sign of eternal life, because while you are sleeping you are meriting for me eternal salvation. You sleep; but your heart sleeps not, it is thinking of suffering and dying for me. While you are slumbering, you are praying for me, and obtaining for me from God the eternal rest of Paradise. But before you carry me (as I hope) to repose with you in heaven, I desire that you should repose forever in my soul. There was a time, O my God! when I drove you away from me; but I trust that, by means of knocking so often at the door of my heart,—now by making it afraid, now by enlightening it, now by the voice of love,—you have already obtained an entrance there. This, I say, is my hope, because I feel a great confidence that I have been forgiven by you; I feel a great hatred and penitence for the offences I have committed against you, penitence that causes me great sorrow; but a sorrow of peace, a sorrow that comforts me and makes me hope most assuredly for pardon from your goodness. I thank you, my Jesus, and I beg you never again to separate yourself from my soul. I know indeed that you wilt not leave me, if I do not drive you away; but this is the favor I ask of you (and I pray you to give me your assistance that I may always seek it of you), that you would not permit me ever to drive you from me. Make me forget everything, in order to think of you who has always thought of me and of my welfare. Make me always love you in this life, so that I may breathe forth my soul in your arms, united to you, and may repose eternally in you without fear of losing you again.

O Mary, assist me in life and in death, so that Jesus may always repose in me, and that I may always repose in Jesus.

The Fifth Day of Christmas

MEDITATION V: Jesus lying on the Straw.

Jesus is born in the stable at Bethlehem. His poor Mother has neither wool nor down to make a bed for the tender Infant. What does she do, then? She gathers together a small handful of straw into the manger, and puts it there for him to lie on: And she laid Him in the manger (Luke 2:7). But, O my God, how hard and painful is this bed for an infant just born; the limbs of a babe are so delicate, and especially the limbs of Jesus, which were formed by the Holy Spirit with a special delicacy, in order that they might be the more sensible to suffering: A body you have fitted to me (Heb. 10:5).

Wherefore the hardness of such a bed must have caused him excessive pain,—pain and shame; for what child, even of the lowest of the people, is ever laid on straw as soon as he is born? Straw is only a fit bed for beasts; and yet the Son of God had none other on earth than a bed of miserable straw. St. Francis of Assisi heard one day as he sat at table these words of the Gospel: And laid Him in the manger; and exclaimed, "What? my Lord was laid on the straw, and shall I continue to sit?" And thus he arose from his seat, threw himself on the ground, and there finished his scanty meal, mingling it with tears of tenderness as he contemplated the sufferings that the Infant Jesus endured while he lay on the straw.

But why did Mary, who had so earnestly desired the birth of this Son—why did she, who loved him so much, allow him to lie and suffer on this hard bed, instead of keeping him in her arms? This is a mystery, says St. Thomas of Villanova: "Nor would she have laid him in such a place, unless there had been some great mystery in it." This great mystery has been explained by many in different ways, but the most pleasing explanation to me is that of St. Peter Damian: Jesus wished as soon as he was born to be placed on the straw, in order to teach us the mortification of our senses: "He laid down the law of martyrdom." The world had been lost by sensual pleasures; through them had Adam and multitudes of his descendants till then been lost. The Eternal Word came from heaven to teach us the love of suffering; and he began as a child to teach it to us by choosing for himself the most acute sufferings that an infant can endure. It was, therefore, he himself who inspired his Mother to cease from holding him in her tender arms, and to replace him on the hard bed, that he might feel the more cold of the cave and the pricking of this rough straw.

Affections and Prayers.

O Lover of souls, O my loving Redeemer is not, then, the sorrowful Passion that awaits you, and the bitter death that is prepared for you on the cross, sufficient, but you must, even from the beginning of your life, even from your infancy, begin to suffer? Yes, because even as an infant you would begin to be my Redeemer, and to satisfy the divine justice for my sins. You chose a bed of straw to deliver me from the fire of hell, into which I have so many times deserved to be cast. You cried and mourned on this bed of straw to obtain for me pardon from your Father. Oh, how your tears afflict and yet console me! They afflict me from compassion at seeing you, an innocent babe, suffering so much for sins not your own; but they console me, because your sufferings assure me of my salvation, and of your immense love for me. But, my Jesus, 1 will not leave you alone to cry and to suffer. I myself will also weep; for I alone deserve to shed tears on account of the offences I have committed against you. I, who have deserved hell, will not refuse any suffering whatever, so that I may regain your favor, O my Savior. Forgive me, I beseech you; receive me once more into your friendship, make me love you, and then chastise me as you will. Deliver me from eternal punishment, and then treat me as it shall please you. I do not seek for pleasures in this life; he does not deserve pleasure who has had the temerity to offend you, O infinite Goodness. I am content to suffer all the crosses you shall send me; but, my Jesus, I will love you still.

O Mary, who sympathized by your sufferings with the sufferings of Jesus, obtain for me the grace to suffer all my trials with patience. Woe to me if, after so many sins, I do not suffer something in this life! And blessed shall I be if I have the happiness to accompany you in your sufferings, O my sorrowful Mother, and you, O my Jesus, always afflicted and crucified for love of me.

The Fourth Day of Christmas

Meditation IV: Jesus Taking Milk.

As soon as Jesus was swathed, he looked for and took milk from the breast of Mary. The spouse in the Canticles desired to see her little brother taking milk from his mother: Who shall give thee to me for my brother, sucking the breast of my mother (Cant. 8:1). The spouse desired it, but did not see him; but we have had the happiness to see the Son of God made Man and become our brother, taking milk from the breasts of Mary. Oh, what a spectacle must it not have been to Paradise to see the divine Word become an infant sucking milk from a virgin who was his own creature!

He, then, who feeds all men and all animals upon the earth, is become so weak and so poor that he requires a little milk to sustain life! Sister Paula, the Camaldolese, in contemplating a little image of Jesus taking milk, felt herself immediately all inflamed with a tender love to God. Jesus took but little of this milk, and took it but seldom in the day. It was revealed to Sister Mary Anne, a Franciscan, that Mary only gave him milk three times in the day. O milk most precious to us, to be changed into blood in the veins of Jesus Christ, and so to be made by him a bath of salvation to cleanse our souls!

Let us consider also that Jesus took this milk in order to nourish the body which he wished to leave us as food in the Holy Communion. Therefore, my Blessed Redeemer, while you nurse at the breast of Mary, you art thinking of me; you art thinking of changing this milk into blood, to be shed afterwards at your death, as the price wherewith to ransom my soul, and as its food in the most Holy Sacrament, which is the salutary milk with which our Lord preserves our souls in the life of grace: "Christ is your milk," says St. Augustine.

O beloved Infant, O my Jesus, let me also exclaim with the woman in the Gospel, Blessed is the womb that bare you, and the paps that gave you suck (Luke 11:27). Blessed are you, O Mother of God, who had the happiness to give milk to the Incarnate Word! Oh, admit me, in company with this great Son, to take from you the milk of a tender and loving devotion to the Infancy of Jesus, and to yourself, my dearest mother.

And I thank you, O divine Infant, who deigned to stand in need of milk for your support in order to show me the love that you bear me. This is what our Lord once gave St. Mary Magdalene of Pazzi to understand that he had reduced himself to the necessity of taking milk in order to make us comprehend the love that he has for redeemed souls.

Affections and Prayers.

O my sweet and most amiable Infant, you are the bread of heaven, and sustain the angels: you provide all creatures with food; and yet you are reduced to the necessity of begging a little milk from a Virgin in order to preserve your life! O divine love, how could you reduce a God to such a state of poverty that he was in want of a little food? But I understand you, O my Jesus. You took milk from Mary in this stable to offer it to God changed into blood on the cross as a sacrifice, and in satisfaction for our sins. Give, O Mary! give all the milk you can to this Son, because every drop of this milk will serve to wash away the sins of my soul, and to nourish it afterwards in the Holy Communion. O my Redeemer! how can one not love you who believes what you have done and suffered to save us? And I, how could I know this, and yet be so ungrateful to you? But your goodness is my hope; and this makes me sure that if I wish for your grace it is mine. I repent, O sovereign Good! of having offended you, and I love you above all things. Or, rather, I love nothing, I love and I will love only you; you are and shall always be my only good, my only love. My beloved Redeemer, give me, I pray, a tender devotion to your holy Infancy, such as you have given to so many souls, who, meditating on you, as an Infant, forgetting all else, seem unable to think of anything but loving you. It is true that they are innocent, and I am a sinner; but you became a child to make yourself loved even by sinners. I have been such; but now I love you with my whole heart, and I desire nothing but your love.

O Mary, give me a little of that tenderness with which you gave suck to the Infant Jesus.

The Third Day of Christmas

Meditation III: Jesus in Swaddling-clothes.

Imagine that you see Mary, having now brought forth her Son, taking him with reverence in her arms, adoring him as her God, and then wrapping him up in swaddling-clothes: She wrapped Him up in swaddling-clothes (Luke 2:7). The Holy Church says the same in the Office of the Passion:
"His limbs, wrapped in swaddling-clothes,
The Virgin Mother binds"

Behold the Infant Jesus, who obediently offers his little hands and feet, and allows himself to be swaddled. Consider that every time the Holy Infant allowed himself to be swathed he thought of the cords with which he should one day be bound and led captive in the garden, and of those also with which he should be tied to the column, and of the nails which should fasten him to the cross; and thinking of these things, he willingly allowed himself to be bound, in order to deliver our souls from the chains of hell.

Bound, then, in these swaddling-clothes, and turning towards us, Jesus invites us to unite ourselves to him with the holy bonds of love. And turning to his eternal Father, he says: My Father, men have abused their liberty, and by rebelling against you have made themselves the slaves of sin; but I will make satisfaction for their disobedience, and will be bound and confined in these swaddling-clothes. Bound with these, I offer you my liberty, in order that man may be delivered from the slavery of the devil. I accept these swaddling-clothes; they are dear to me, because they are the symbols of the cords with which, from this moment forth, I offer myself to be one day bound and led to death for the salvation of men.

His bands are a healthful binding (Ecclus. 6:31). The bands of Jesus were the healthful binding, to heal the wounds of our souls. Therefore, O my Jesus, you would be bound in swaddling-clothes for the love of me. "O Love, how great is your bond, which could bind a God." O divine Love, you alone could make my God your prisoner. And shall I then, O Lord, refuse to allow myself to be bound by your holy love? Shall I for the future have the courage to detach myself from your sweet and amiable chains? And for what? To make myself a slave of hell? O my Lord, you remain bound up in this manger for the love of me; I desire always to remain bound to you.

St. Mary Magdalene of Pazzi said that the bands that we ought to take should be a firm resolution of uniting ourselves to God by means of love; detaching ourselves at the same time from all affection for anything that is not God. For this reason, also, it seems that our loving Jesus has allowed himself to be, as it were, bound and made a prisoner in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar, under the sacramental species, in order that he might behold his beloved souls made also prisoners of his love.

Affections and Prayers.

And what fear can I have of your chastisement, O my beloved Infant, now that I see you bound in the swaddling-clothes, depriving yourself, as it were, of the power of raising your hands to punish me? You give me to understand by these bands that you will not chastise me, if I will detach myself from the chains of my vices and bind myself to you. Yes, my Jesus, I will bind myself. I repent with all my heart of having separated myself from you, by abusing that liberty which you have given me. You offer me a more desirable liberty; a liberty which delivers me from the chains of the devil, and places me among the children of God. You have given yourself up to be imprisoned in these swaddling-clothes for the love of me; I will be in future a prisoner of your infinite love. O blessed chains, O beautiful emblems of salvation, which bind souls to God, bind also my poor heart; but bind it so fast that it may never be able to free itself from the love of this sovereign Good. My Jesus, I love you; I bind myself to you; I give you my whole heart, my whole will. No, I will never leave you again, my beloved Lord. O my Savior, who, to pay my debts, would not only be wrapped by Mary in swaddling-clothes, but even be bound as a criminal by the executioners, and thus bound would go along the streets of Jerusalem, led to death as an innocent lamb to the slaughter-house; O you who would be nailed to the cross, and did not leave it until you had given up your life upon it,—I beseech you, permit me not to be ever separated again from you, so that I should again find myself deprived of your favor and of your love.

O Mary, who once bound in swaddling-clothes your innocent Son, bind me also, a miserable sinner; bind me to Jesus, so that I may never again separate myself from his feet, that I may always live and die bound to him, so that one day I may have the happiness to enter into that blessed country where I shall never be able and shall never be afraid of detaching myself from his holy love.

The Second Day of Christmas

Meditation II: Jesus Is Born an Infant.

Consider that the first sign which the angel gave to the shepherds whereby they might discover the new-born Messias was that they would find him under the form of an infant: You shall find the infant wrapped in swaddling-clothes, and laid in a manger (Luke 2:12). The littleness of infants is a great attraction for love; but a still greater attraction must the littleness of the Infant Jesus be to us, who, being the incomprehensible God, has made himself small for the love of us: "For our sake he became a little child."

Adam came into the world at a full age; but the eternal Word chose to appear as an infant—a child is born to us—that he might thus attract our hearts to himself with greater force: "so would he be born, who willed to be loved." He came not into the world to inspire terror, but to be loved; and for this reason he preferred to show himself, at his first appearance, as a tender, weak infant. Our Lord is great, and greatly to be praised (Ps. 144:3), says St. Peter Chrysologus. My Lord is great, and therefore he deserves highly to be praised for his divine majesty. But when the saint considered him as a little child in the stable of Bethlehem, he exclaimed with tenderness, "My Lord is a little child, and greatly to be loved." My great and supreme God made himself little for my sake.

Ah, how is it possible that any one can reflect with faith on a God become a little child, crying and wailing on the straw in a cave, and yet not love him, and invite all men to love him, as did St. Francis of Assisi, who said, "Let us love the child of Bethlehem, let us love the child of Bethlehem." He is an infant; he does not speak, he only cries; but, O my God! are not these cries all voices of love, with which he invites us to love him, and demands our hearts!

Let us consider, besides, that infants also gain our affections because we consider them innocent: but all other infants are born with the infection of original sin; Jesus was born an infant, but he was born holy; holy, innocent, unpolluted (Heb.7:26). My beloved, says the holy spouse, is all ruddy with love, and all white with innocence, without a spot of any sin: My beloved is white and ruddy, chosen out of thousands (Cant. 5:10). In this Infant did the eternal Father find his delight, because, as St. Gregory says, "in him alone he found no fault."

Let us miserable sinners comfort ourselves, because this divine Infant has come down from heaven to communicate his innocence to us by means of his Passion. His merits, if we only know how to apply them to our selves, can change us from sinners into innocents and saints: in these merits let us place all our confidence; through them let us continually ask for graces from the eternal Father, and we shall obtain everything.

Affections and Prayers.

Eternal Father, I, a miserable sinner, worthy of hell, have nothing of my own to offer you in satisfaction for my sins; I offer you the tears, the sufferings, the blood, the death of this Infant, who is your Son; and through them I implore pity from you. If I had not this Son to offer you, I should be lost; there would be no longer any hope for me; but you gave him to me for the purpose that, in offering you his merits, I might have a good hope of my salvation. My ingratitude, O Lord, is great; but your mercy is still greater. And what greater mercy could I hope for from you, than that you should give me your own Son for my Redeemer, and for the victim of my sins? For the love, therefore, of Jesus Christ, forgive me all the offences that I have committed against you, of which I repent with my whole heart, because by them I have offended you, O infinite Goodness. And for the sake of Jesus Christ, I ask of you holy perseverance. O my God, if I should again offend you, after you waited for me with so much patience; after you assisted me with so much light, and forgiven me with so much love, I should indeed deserve a special hell for myself. O my Father, do not forsake me, I pray you. I tremble when I think of the number of times that I have betrayed you; how many times have I promised to love you, and then have again turned my back upon you? O my Creator, let me not have to lament the misfortune of seeing myself again deprived of your favor: Permit me not to be separated from you; permit me not to be separated from you. I repeat it, and will repeat it to my very last breath; and always give me the grace to repeat to you this prayer: Permit me not to be separated from you. My Jesus, my dearest Infant, chain me with your love. I love you, and will always love you. Permit me not to be ever again separated from your love.

I love you too, my Mother; oh, love me also. And if you love me, this is the favor I beg you to obtain for me, that I may never cease to love my God.

The First Day of Christmas

Meditation I: The Birth of Jesus

The birth of Jesus Christ caused a universal joy to the whole world. He was the Redeemer who had been desired and sighed after for so many years; and therefore he was called the desired of the nations, and the desire of the eternal hills. Behold him already come, and born in a little cave. Let us consider that this day the angel announces to us also the same great joy that he announced to the shepherds: Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, that shall be to all the people; for this day is born to you a Savior (Luke 2:10).

What rejoicing is there in a country when the first-born son is born to a king! But surely we ought to keep still greater festival when we see the Son of God born and come down from heaven to visit us, urged to this by the depth of his mercy: Through the depth of the mercy of our God, in which the Orient from on high hath visited us (Luke 1:78). We were lost; and behold him who came to save us: For our salvation he came down from heaven. Behold the shepherd who came to save his sheep from death by giving his life for their sake: I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd gives His life for his sheep (John 10:11). Behold the Lamb of God, who came to sacrifice himself, to obtain for us the divine favor, and to become our deliverer, our life, our light, and even our food in the most Holy Sacrament!

St. Maximus says that for this reason, among others, Christ chose to be laid in the manger where the animals were fed, to make us understand that he has become man also to make himself our food: "In the manger, where the food of animals is placed, he allowed his limbs to be laid, thereby showing that his own body would be the eternal food of men." Besides this, he is born every day in the Sacrament by means of the priests and the words of consecration; the altar is the crib, and there we go to feed ourselves on his flesh. Some one might desire to have the Holy Infant in his arms, as the aged Simeon had; but faith teaches us that, when we receive Communion, the same Jesus who was in the manger of Bethlehem is not only in our arms, but in our breasts. He was born for this purpose, to give himself entirely to us: A child is born to us, a son is given to us (Is. 9:6).

Affections and Prayers.

I have gone astray like a sheep that is lost; seek Thy servant (Ps. 118:176). O Lord, I am that sheep which, by following after my own pleasures and caprices, have miserably lost myself; but you, who are at once the shepherd and divine Lamb, are he who came down from heaven to save me by sacrificing yourself as a victim on the cross in satisfaction for my sins. Behold, the Lamb of God; behold him who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29). If, therefore, I desire to amend my life, what need I fear? why should I not confide entirely in you, O my Savior, who were born on purpose to save me? Behold, God is my Savior; I will put my trust in him, and will not fear (Is. 12:2). What greater proof could you give me of your mercy, O my dearest Redeemer, to inspire me with confidence, than to give me yourself? O my dear Infant, how grieved am I that I have offended you! I have made you weep in the stable of Bethlehem. But since you have come to seek me, I throw myself at your feet; and although I behold you afflicted and humbled, lying upon straw in the manger, I acknowledge you for my supreme king and sovereign. I feel that your tender infant-cries invite me to love you, and demand my heart. Behold it, my Jesus; I present it today at your feet; change it and inflame it, O you who came into the world to inflame the hearts of men with your holy love. I feel as if I heard you say to me from the manger, Love the Lord your God with your whole heart (Matt. 12:37). And I will answer, Ah, my Jesus, if I do not love you who are my Lord and my God, whom shall I love? You call yourself mine, because you were born in order to give yourself entirely to me; and shall I refuse to be yours? No, my beloved Lord, 1 give myself entirely to you; and I love you with my whole heart. I love you, I love you, I love you, O sovereign Good, the one only love of my soul. I beseech you accept me this day, and permit me never to cease to love you.

O Mary, my Queen, through that consolation which you enjoyed the first time you beheld your new-born Son and gave him your first kiss, beseech him to accept me for his servant, and to chain me forever to himself by the gift of his holy love.