From the bulletin for the Fourth Sunday of Advent (Dec 22, 2024)
Parish School of Prayer, Pt 13: A Christmas Bonus
I will write you at the close of the year. Not the liturgical year; that ended on November 30. Nor the calendar year. That ends, well, you know when. But the Year of Prayer, which was declared by Pope Francis on January 21 of this year (popes can do that!) and will end on December 24, on which day the Jubilee Year of Hope officially commences.
Good weekend, then, for a (final?) School of Prayer bulletin article. What topic have I selected? Secret option M: the Manger Scene.
We can be sure that nativity scenes were not originally intended as mere pious household decoration. Rather, as a springboard to prayer. Nothing less would have been worthy of the saintly genius who invented them, St. Francis of Assisi. Evidently, St. Francis wanted to marvel with his very eyes at the mystery which is at the heart of our religion. He wanted to make the Most Astounding Fact Ever–the fact that God wished to become visible, touchable–both visible and touchable. He wanted this truth that we believe and profess to also be impressed upon our senses, in hopes of moving man’s hardened heart to love Love, for He has so loved us.
How can we pray with a manger scene? Well, it starts by simply contemplating it. Is this not the letter of the Gospel come to life? But don’t gaze from a distance: just as God has entered our world in the Incarnation, so we must enter into the mystery of God made man with our imagination. When you behold a manger scene (hopefully a beautiful one, one that inspires reverence and devotion), inject yourself too. Close your eyes (if it helps) and see yourself approaching the humble structure that so poorly houses the newborn God come to save.
Take a page from another spiritual genius, St. Ignatius: activate your senses. Smell the smells of that hovel. Feel the cold of the December air. Hear the sounds of the animals, the wind blowing, the Virgin Mother singing. Touch the coarse wood; kneel in the damp hay; see the infant Lord laying helpless in the heart of His mostly unsuspecting creation.
Once you are “there,” make the following considerations, pondering them long enough to allow your heart to respond. 1) The little one lying before you is the one in whom “the fullness of the divinity was pleased to dwell bodily” (Col 2:9). The infinite God is here contained within the tiny frame of a baby boy. Eternity is bounded by the thin slice of the present moment. Omnipotence is coiled within utter helplessness. Cry out with St. Paul, “O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” (Rom 11:33)
2) What has He come? To be with us. To be with you. To reveal the Father’s love. To accomplish a mission of reconciliation. To die for our sins. In other words, for the greatest of all purposes. And under such humble circumstances, the adventure begins! Oh, truly, God’s ways are not our ways. “For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Cor 1:25). Marvel here; allow your pride to be confounded. Allow your heart to be softened.
3) God could have saved us by other means. He did not have to save us at all, nor did we deserve it. But He chose to come this way to save us. Why? For the sake of greater solidarity with us. And that we might more easily approach Him, and “learn of Him, meek and humble of heart.” And, ultimately, to give a greater proof of His love by assuming our nature in order to suffer in it. Yes, as you behold Jesus lying there, still inexpert in controlling those fledgling limbs of His, hear Him say silently to His Father: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; in holocausts and sin offerings you took no delight, but as it is written of me in the scroll, behold, I come to do your will!” (Heb 10:5-7). A body prepared… that He might fulfill the Father’s most loving will, and suffer in that body the punishment we justly deserved, that that body’s destruction might become for us a fountain of salvation!
As you continue to ponder the scene, simply say to your soul, “such is His love for me… such is His love…” Pray, too, that the Holy Spirit might allow a ray of the light of these truths to break through, to bring you to your knees alongside those wise men and shepherds of every age, to shed tears of gratitude at the goodness of God, and adore the Lord into whose presence you have now truly entered.
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