“Let us run to Mary, and, as her little children, cast ourselves into her arms with a perfect confidence.”
–Saint Francis de Sales
Christmas continues in the Catholic Church as we are in the midst of the Christmas octave, one long Christmas day. Let us keep the festivities going, the lights up; the carols in our hearts and on our lips.
Yes, while the world is packing up their Christmas decor, the Church bids us to remain in Christmas: she asks us to stay at the Manger and there to learn the lessons of the infancy of Christ. St. Louis de Montfort frequently wrote about the infancy of Christ; in particular, on the Divine Child’s dependence on the Blessed Virgin Mary. In The True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary he explored the mysterious dependency of God on the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Incarnation of Christ, and in Christ’s infancy and childhood. Fr. de Montfort taught that we, too, are to nurture our relationship with Our Lady by turning to her in our necessities of life and soul. He, and other saints, taught that it has never been known (St. Bernard) for Our Lady to neglect one of her children who turns to her in childlike need and dependency.
It is at the Manger that Our Lord shows us how we are to love and trust Our Lady: with childlike simplicity. At the Manger we find our spiritual home: in our God-given spot in Our Lady’s arms, in her Immaculate Heart; the place where Christ found His home.
So, for today, let us accept the Christmas gift that God gives to us: a place in the Manger, a place in the arms of Our Lady next to the Infant Christ; and, as St. Francis de Sales said:
“Let us run to Mary, and, as her little children, cast ourselves into her arms with a perfect confidence.”
Merry Christmas!
~SCF
~Image: source and information.
~Additional reading: a newly translated Christmas poem of St. Alphonsus Liguori on the Rorate Caeli blog, here.
