Our blessed Lord's life, during the nine months, was a life of
imprisonment. He chose for Himself a position of dependence,
helplessness and inability. He Who was the Light of the world chose to
live in darkness; He Whom the Heavens cannot contain chose a more
cramped position than any prisoner has ever had to endure; He Who was
infinite allowed Himself to be confined; He Who was immortal took a
mortal body. He endured all the sufferings that helplessness and
inability and immobility entail; and we have to keep reminding ourselves
that He was fully alive to all His sufferings. We are not making an
imaginary picture, but trying to realize what were the actual facts of
those nine months. His Mother understood, let us try to do the same.
Let us go to the "Tower of David" where Our Lord is kept a prisoner and
let us remember that He is there for us. Let us not be amongst those to
whom He will have to say sadly: "I was in prison and you did not visit
Me." Later on, at the end of His life, He will allow His own people to
take Him prisoner and will stand still while they put the chains on His
wrists and will allow Himself to be dragged where they wish. Later on
still He will choose to be imprisoned in the little Host and to make
Himself to the end of time our Prisoner of Love.
Thy imprisonments were all voluntary, my JESUS, they were all suffered
out of love and out of love for me. Oh, may these visits that I am
paying Thee during the blessed season of Advent result in my imbibing
more of the spirit of my imprisoned Master. Mine too is a voluntary
imprisonment; I am His captive because I said: I will be His servant, "I
will not go out free" (Ex. XXI. 5). I gave up my liberty, preferring to
be His prisoner rather than the devil's free man. Naturally He takes me
at my word, but oh, sometimes prison-life is very hard to bear! He
chains me to a bed of sickness, where I must lie still and see the work
I long to do left undone or, what is perhaps harder still, badly done;
He gives me great desires and no means of fulfilling them; He fills me
with plans and schemes for His glory and then seems to make it
impossible for them to be realized; He trains me, as I think, for some
particular position and then detains me in another for which it seems to
me I have not the least aptitude; He sets limits to my strength; He
seems to keep me always in the background; He appears to use everybody
else except me for His work; He seems to cramp my efforts and allow me
no scope for the talents He has given me.
The Divine Prisoner Himself answers my plaints: My child, all these
things only prove that you are My prisoner, that I have taken you at
your word and that I do with you as I wish. Your time is not lost any
more than Mine was. By doing My Will, however inscrutable it may seem to
you, you are doing far more for Me than if you were doing your own.
Trust me, be patient, bear and suffer all for Me, Who am a Prisoner for
you. I love you to be dependent on Me, I love you to walk by faith, I
love you to trust Me, and so I am constantly doing little things to
remind you that you are My prisoner. Strive to be a prisoner of love as
I am, that is (1) one who is in prison for love of another, (2) one who
loves his chains, (3) one whose every act in prison is done to please
Me.