The Nativity
from Venerable Fulton J. Sheen
All love tends to become like that which it loves. God loved man; therefore, He became man. Thanks to His human nature, He could take on our woes and our sorrows, and feel the effects of sin as if they were His very own.
But all this was conditioned upon Mary’s giving Him a human nature. Without her He would never have had eyes to see the multitude hungry in the desert, or ears to hear the pleading of the lame man of Jericho, or hands to caress children, or feet to seek the lost sheep.
For nine months, her own body was the natural Eucharist, in which God shared communion with human life, thus preparing for that greater Eucharist, when human life would commune with the Divine.
Mary’s joy was to form Christ in her own body; her joy now is to form Christ in our souls. In this Mystery, we pray to become pregnant with the Christ spirit, giving Him new lips with which He may speak of His Father, new hands with which He may feed the poor, and a new heart with which He may love everyone, even enemies.
Third Decade: from St. Louis De Montfort
We offer Thee, O Child Jesus, this third decade in honor of Thy Blessed Nativity, and we ask of Thee, through this mystery and through the intercession of Thy Blessed Mother, detachment from things of this world, love of poverty, and love of the poor.
One Our Father, ten Hail Marys, Glory be to the Father, Fatima Prayer…
Grace of the mystery of the Nativity, come down into my soul and make me truly poor in spirit.