Author: Ashlyn Dunn, FOCUS missionary
“And Mary kept all of these things, reflecting on them in her heart.” Luke 2:19
Merry Christmas!
Our time of preparation has come to fruition! As we celebrate the birth of Our Lord, I invite you to pause for a moment and reflect in your heart. During this season of Advent what has challenged you? What has comforted you?
Follow the lead of Our Lady, who not just during her pregnancy— her nine month Advent— but all throughout her existence has pondered the mystery of Christ’s Incarnation, His Death, and His Resurrection in her Immaculate Heart.
This image reminds me of the words of one of my favorite saints, St. Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians, “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?” It was not just Mary who was created to be a temple for Christ. You were too. But do you feel like one? Do you believe that God wants to dwell in you?
In light of these questions, I offer one last reflection for the celebration of the Nativity of Our Lord. Where was Christ’s temple on the night of his birth? It was a stable.
You don’t have to be a gleaming palace for Jesus. He told you for all time that he preferred your dirty stable of a soul to a worldly throne by the circumstances of his birth. Just like with you, Jesus did not chose a stable because it was perfect, beautiful, and holy. Yet it became all of those things to the greatest degree possible because he was there.
One of my favorite Spiritual authors, Carryl Houselander, says it like this, “The way to begin healing the wounds of the world is to treasure the infant Christ in us; to be not the castle but the cradle of Christ…”
This Christmas, welcome Christ’s presence within you— allow him to transform you into his holy place. That’s what he wants. That’s why he came.
Catholic Terps | author