On the way from Nazareth to Bethlehem lies Jerusalem and we may be quite
sure that a happy event for Mary and Joseph on this long and tiring
journey now nearing its end would be their visit to the Temple, near
which Mary, and probably Joseph too, had spent most of her life. We may
think, then, of Mary to-day taking her Son into His own Temple. We may
think of the joy of the Angels as they lifted high the gates to let the
hidden King come in. In the Holy of Holies of Solomon's Temple was the
Ark of the Covenant, inside which were the Tables of God's law and upon
which was manifested the presence of the All-Holy. But here kneeling in
the Temple, in the women's court afar off, was the real Ark of the
Covenant of which the other was only a type, hiding within her chaste
womb the new Lawgiver Whose Presence was known only to the Angels who
were worshipping round His Shrine, and to Mary and Joseph the only
earthly worshippers in the Temple that day who understood.
Here was the Virgin with her Son, the prophecy was fulfilled--God with
us. "His name shall be called _Emmanuel_."
Yet Mary and Joseph were not the only worshippers in the Temple that
day--there was a Human Soul worshipping God as He had never been
worshipped before. The Heart of Jesus now so near the end of the first
stage of Its existence on earth was offering to God all Its homage and
all Its love, offering to Him all the work that had been done during the
nine months passed in the holy "Ark of the Covenant," all the
humiliation and self-abasement, the silence and dependence, the
suffering and patience, the satisfaction and merit. He had been doing
all the time the things that pleased His Father, the things that He had
made Himself man to be able to do. Now He is waiting--and the very
waiting is another Act of worship--waiting for the moment to come when
He can take the next step in His earthly journey, waiting with His
Mother whose intense desire is only second to His Own.
O Emmanuel! God with us! I feel that I must go too to Thy Sacred Courts
to-day and make one more worshipper before that Holy Shrine. Advent is
nearly over, my time of preparation is well-nigh at an end. What have I
to offer as I kneel in adoration? Feeble desires, broken resolutions,
failure again in the thing I did so want not to fail in this Advent,
good intentions, but little else. Dare I come and kneel there where all
is so holy and so perfect? Yes, for He is _Emmanuel_, God incarnate for
me. Let me hand Him through His Mother all my poverty and wretchedness
and weakness and failure, together with my contrition and repentance
and love, and in exchange He will hand me His forgiveness and the
promise to offer my inadequate worship, together with His own Divine
perfections, to His Father, Who will be satisfied. This is what
_Emmanuel_ means.