Something I wrote a couple of years ago, and still so true–and I am writing this foremost for myself!

Christmas!  Who doesn’t love this time of year?  Many people say to me of Advent and Christmas, “This is my favorite season!”  I’m sure we can all easily think of our reasons for that: lighting Advent wreaths, Christmas lights and caroling, Midnight Mass, etc.  And yet I know there are many of us who are only too aware of how little prepared we actually are for His coming, of how our weaknesses and faults, anxieties and busyness, seem to keep us from any kind of adequate preparation for this Feast.  The Prayer from the Divine Liturgy for Christmas in the Eastern Church gives hope: “O little Child lying in a manger, by means of a star, heaven has called and led to you the Magi, the first-fruits of the Gentiles, who were astounded to behold, not scepters and thrones, but extreme poverty.  What, indeed, is lower than a cave?  What is more humble than swaddling clothes?  And yet the splendor our your divinity shone forth in them resplendently.  O Lord, glory to you!”  Take heart!  We need not be afraid of the “stable” of our lives–as Fr. David May form Madonna House says: “The Child teaches us not to be afraid of the barren, winter of our wounded hearts, of our human emptiness.  For, by grace, these have become an Advent for us. . . . He awaits us there where we are most in need and most afraid: in the dark cave of our poverty.”  Yes, take heart.  At a mere opening of the door of your “stable,” Christ can shine resplendently therein!