Merry Christmas everyone!
Please enjoy yourselves this holiday season and keep closer to God and His angels and saints!
It’s an entire season! I wish it was all year long!
All Creation waited and groaned for a saviour! And He was born this day!
‘As I in hoary winter’s night stood shivering in the snow,
Surprised I was with sudden heat which made my heart to glow;
And lifting up a fearful eye to view what fire was near,
A pretty babe all burning bright did in the air appear;
Who, scorched with excessive heat, such floods of tears did shed
As though his floods should quench his flames which with his tears were fed.
Alas, quoth he, but newly born in fiery heats I fry,
Yet none approach to warm their hearts or feel my fire but I!
My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding thorns,
Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke, the ashes shame and scorns;
The fuel justice layeth on, and mercy blows the coals,
The metal in this furnace wrought are men’s defiled souls,
For which, as now on fire I am to work them to their good,
So will I melt into a bath to wash them in my blood.
With this he vanished out of sight and swiftly shrunk away,
And straight I called unto mind that it was Christmas day.’
St. Robert Southwell, ‘St. Peter’s Complaint’, ‘The Burning Babe’
Our Lady of the Holy Face Pray for Us
Mary the dawn, Christ the Perfect Day;
Mary the gate, Christ the Heavenly Way!
Mary the root, Christ the Mystic Vine;
Mary the grape, Christ the Sacred Wine!
Mary the wheat, Christ the Living Bread
Mary the stem, Christ the Rose blood-red!
Mary the font, Christ the Cleansing Flood;
Mary the cup, Christ the Saving Blood!
Mary the temple, Christ the temple’s Lord; Mary the shrine, Christ the God adored!
Mary the beacon, Christ the Haven’s Rest; Mary the mirror, Christ the Vision Blest!
Mary the mother, Christ the mother’s Son; By all things blest while endless ages run.
