I. The hour arrived when the Word made flesh was to be born of a Virgin Mary and appear in the world, the movement of his joy was so great, that the prophet compares it to the effort a giant makes for some great undertaking: He rejoiced, says he, as a giant to run his way. Here is the tale of the event by St. Luke the Evangelist:

   'At that time there went forth a decree from Caesar Augustus, that the world should be enrolled. This enrolling was first made by Cyrinus the governor of Syria. And all went to be enrolled, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, to be enrolled with Mary his spoused wife, who was with child.' Mary and Joseph then obeyed to earthly powers also.

   The way was long and rough, and in the rigor of winter. Tired with their journey, the gentle handmaid and her holy spouse the carpenter enter the small Bethlehem. How great was their patience? how perfect was their resignation in the refusals they had to suffer in the city of David? Not one house, not one inn to shelter them that night. They go farther into town, they go through all the streets; all lodgings are full of foreigners. They come back, pray, solicit: all in vain. Relatives, friends, acquaintances, all are deaf to their voices: they receive only refusals, contempt, insults. O, holy poverty! Art thou so rare a virtue as not to find anyone that receives thee in this miserable world? To such a point as to have even God's Mother, who had adorned herself with it, repudiated? Ah! poverty is opprobrious and despicable in the eyes of men, but therefore exceedingly dearer in the eyes of God.

   'And it came to pass, that when they were there, her days were accomplished that she should be delivered.' Mary sees herself near this term, not by sorrows supervened, like other women, but by the increase of her love and of the desire she had to contemplate with her own eyes and carry in her arms the only Son of God and hers.

   Nevertheless in what condition she is! In what tribulation Joseph is! The cold, the night, the darkness, the crowd of strangers, he uproar augment their pain, embarrassment, and fatigue. Yet no one word, not one feeling of complaint and lamentation escapes from their mouth.  Instructed better than other men of the secrets of God's conduct, they know well that those, who He employs for his greatest enterprises, must be willing to meet the hardest trials.

 

     II. Admire, my soul their poverty. Excluded from every house on account of the numerous guests, hence, thence, in steep streets, through rough haunts they go into the country, and a stable offers itself as the only refuge to the greatest personages on earth. Hither Go leads the two holiest and dearest persons of his creation, Mary, and Joseph. They recognize the hand that guides them, and adore it with love and resignation; and to reward them for their faithfulness, the Lord is going to bestow on them the most signal favors, and give them the consolation of being the first to see the Word of God made flesh.

   In a corner of this refuge well suitable to the birth of an infant destined to die one day on a cross, on 25th December of the year of Rome 753, a Saturday about midnight, Mary enters  into deep contemplation, and  without offense of her inviolable virginity, always remaining as she had been, Virgin and Immaculate, becomes truly a Mother, bringing forth her Son, Chief, Heir and Firstborn, according to the flesh, of David 's house.

   The Word made flesh, by his own divine power, like a sun's ray entering through the window without breaking the glass, enters the world by means of the Virgin Mary in a small but infinitely beautiful body. Who can by words express the feelings of Mary's and Joseph's heart at that hour? The Angels recognize and adore the born Infant like their Lord, and, having called the shepherds, they sing: 'Glory be to God on high, and on earth peace to men of good will.'

   Look, my soul, at the Queen of Heaven and earth. She wraps up the Creator of everything in very poor clothes, and serves as a cradle. She calls her virgin Spouse, and with him pays him the first and purest honors that earth ever paid him! Let us rejoice with this divine Mother and St. Joseph; let us join our praise with theirs. Let us endeavor above all, to imitate their poverty, resignation, patience, submission, and their faithfulness to the designs of Divine Providence.

   O, holy Divine Providence, how admirable thou art in thy dispositions, although they seem the effect of chance to the foolish world! The Roman emperor by his edict accomplishes the designs of his politics and vanity, and he is the cause that Mary goes to Bethlehem, and there Jesus was born to fulfill the prophecy, which appoints there the place of his birth. Jesus is in advance written on the registers of the Empire, that it may be manifest to the nations of earth which were the place and time of his brith; and that He is the Son of Abraham and heir of David.

 Jesus is brought forth in a stable, laid in a manger, to be the founder of an eternal empire which must submit all the empires and monarch of the earth to the laws of humility and detachment from riches. All appears the effect of chance in the eyes of man,  because the sensual man does not arise from visible to invisible things, and in consequence, he is ignorant of the last reason of things, and cannot look at God as the prudent governor of the world.

   Ah! my Lord, I recognize and worship thy adorable Providence! Men are blind in their judgments. As for me, in any condition whatever of privation, humiliation, contradiction I may find myself, I will always recognize that these come to me from thy unspeakable Providence, which disposes everything for my salvation and thy glory.

 

     III. Who is then this Jesus born in a manger? He is our God, but a truly hidden God, as Isaiah calls him: equal to his Father according to divinity, and like me according to humanity, except for sin. O, most charming Infant, faith reveals thee to my heart as my Saviour and model! Thou early teachest me obedience, humility, mortification, detaching, holy poverty, real contempt of all that the world esteems, and true esteem of all that the world despises.

   O, how eloquent the voices of this stable and manger are! O, great God! The Eternal is to become an infant one day old! The Word Creator, who spoke and the were made, is a wordless creature! The almighty is a weak infant! See, my soul, how that tender little body is offended by the hardness of the manger; his delicate limbs already suffer the rigor of cold; his amiable eyes shed tears, not to weep his evils, but to wash away our sins! And dost thou esteem temporal comforts so much, and dost thou look for them with so much anxiety? Jesus Christ treated his body so pure and innocent, and perfectly submitted to Divine Will, and dost thou seek so much delicacy in thine, that is a body of sin and the capital enemy of thy happiness? Ah! He wished that his body, through holy and innocent,  to be laid on the ground, on a small pile of straw,  because he knew how dangerous the love of our flesh, and the false peace we have with its wicked desires are for our salvation. They make us lose all the fruit of the pains that our Saviour suffered for us, and of the merits he acquired for us. Alas! moaned St. Bernard, we shall never be quite free from self-love if not in Heaven alone. And if self-love without the weakness of the body precipitated so great a number of Angels into hell, what will it do in creatures fashioned with mud, who abandon themselves to their disorderly passions?

   I worship thee, O Word made flesh! I adore thee, Son of the living God! I adore thee, O true God, dressed in my flesh, and willingly subject to my miseries. Come into my soul by thy grace, and be thou my true Saviour. How those thy first tears tanspierce me, that thou sheddest at the sight of all the sins of the world! I have formerly sacrificed to worldly and bodily cares the greater part of my life; what have left of it is no too much to merit Heaven. May I at least now, O my God, begin to serve thee! I repent with all my heart of my sins, and sincerely wish to weep over them with thee. But it is your duty, almighty tears that open Heaven. It is your duty to open my eyes in order to heal the blindness of my soul. Wash away sweet tears, all the spots of my heart. O tears, which penetrate the Eternal father's heart, penetrate mine also, and kindle it with Gods love and hatred of profane love.

   Mary, Joseph, I am unworthy to be heard; but I hope to obtain all by your intercession.