_His_ preparation is coming to an end too. Let me go over in my mind
once again all that He had to plan and to do by way of preparation
before He could come to me in Holy Communion. It was for this that the
Incarnation was a preparation. In order to feed me with His Flesh and
Blood, He had to become incarnate. This is the point of Christmas, and
it is the point of contact between JESUS and my soul. To-morrow Mary in
an ecstasy of joy will look upon His Face and press Him to her heart;
to-morrow Joseph, full of awe and wonder, will take Him in his arms;
to-morrow the Angels will sing their _Glorias_ as they gaze upon their
God incarnate; to-morrow the shepherds will adore and offer Him their
gifts; and to-morrow I too shall touch Him very closely for I shall
receive into my body and into my heart His Body and Blood, His Soul and
His Divinity. He will be with me and I with Him. It is for this that I
have been making my preparations and it is for this that He has been
making His. How long has He been preparing? Not only during Advent, not
only during the nine months, not only since the great promise was given
in Eden, not only since the time when there was war among the Angels
because of the Incarnation--I am getting beyond time already and farther
back than that I cannot go for my mind is finite; but His is infinite
and just because it is infinite there never was a time when the
Incarnation was not in His mind, and there never was a time when I, His
child, was not in His mind, and also there never was a time when He did
not see the blest moments when He should bring the two into contact and
make me understand personally what the point of the Incarnation is.
These blest moments are my Communions and surely one of the most blest
must be my Christmas Communion when He Who comes to me and Who feeds me
with Himself is the Child Who was born at Bethlehem, He Who had been so
long expected, the Seed of the Woman, the Orient from on high, the Star
of the East, the Desired One of the nations, the Root of Jesse, the King
of the Gentiles with His Key and His Sceptre, Emmanuel, God with us.
_Colloquy._ I kneel at the door of the empty stable and offer Thee my
heart, O my little JESUS! I have tried to make room for Thee; I have
made my poor little preparations with Thy blessed Mother; I have taken
long journeys to get to Thee; but my body is not fit to be Thy temple
and my heart is treacherous and faithless. I am ashamed to have so poor
a shelter to offer Thee. If it were not that Thou didst ask for it, I
dare not offer it. Oh! Thou Who didst not refuse the manger-bed, come to
my heart, look at the contrition and the humiliation and the reparation
and the aching longing to be what Thou dost want, and forget the
faithlessness and the failures and the weakness. Come, my little King,
incarnate for me, come and save me, if I were not a sinner I should not
need a Saviour.
_Resolution._ To keep very near to Mary and Joseph to-day.
_Spiritual Bouquet._ "In the morning you shall see His glory."
* * * * *
BOKSTEL--HOLLAND
ELECTRISCHE DRUKKERIJ WILHELM VAN EUPEN
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious spelling and punctuation errors were repaired, but unusual
period spellings and grammatical usages were retained.
Headings and scripture references were inconsistently formatted and have
been standardized, but variations in book titles and abbreviations were
retained.
Where punctuation in contents page entries and chapter headings in
original did not agree, the contents page entries were corrected.
He, Him, His, etc. when referring to "Jesus" and "God" are capitalized
throughout the original, and "Jesus" placed in small caps. The few
exceptions have been changed to conform to the majority.
Contents page--ditto marks were used in the original. The marks were
replaced by actual repeated words as follows: chapters 8-11, St. John
the Baptist; chapters 16-20, The Interior Life; chapters 22-24 and
26-28, December. Also, under Prayers, "Sancta Dei Genitrix," for each
line after the first, "ora pro nobis" replaces ditto marks.
P. 5: "few streaks of Thy Divine Light"--original shows "Th Divine
Light" with a gap after "Th."
P. 20: "(3) The Sentences." The original labels the subheadings within
(3) as (1) and (2). This format was retained. Also "There are only two,"
original shows "The are only two."