December 28
“True love of God consists in adhering perfectly to His holy will, not desiring to do or to be other than what God indicates for each of us, to the point of becoming, as it were, “a living will of God.”
-Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, OCD
by Margalita Poletunow, LPCMHFrom the beginning of Advent and throughout the Christmas season, a woman facing infertility challenges or who has experienced a miscarriage or stillbirth may be filled with sadness and sorrow. At a time when all around her is brimming with excitement and joy, she may be bracing herself to swim against the waves of loneliness and a sense of emptiness. While family and friends may expect her to display the same seasonal euphoria as others around her, her heart may be aching over a desire that is unfulfilled or a baby that has died too soon.
December 27
“The Blessed Mary certainly did the Father’s will and so it was for her a greater thing to have been Christ’s disciple than to have been His mother, and she was more blessed in her discipleship than in her motherhood.”
-St. Augustine
December 26
Her Feet Shod with Holiness
And, if our faith had given us nothing more
Than this Example, of all Womanhood,
So mild, so merciful, so strong, so good,
So patient, so peaceful, loyal, loving pure –
This were enough to prove it higher and truer
Than all the creeds the world had known before.
Virgin, who lovest the poor and lonely,
If the loud cry of a mother’s heart
Can ever ascend to where thou art,
Into thy blessed hands and holy
Receive my prayer of praise and thanksgiving.
Let the hands that bore our Savior bear it
Into the awful presence of God;
For thy feet with holiness are shod,
And, if thou bearest it, he will hear it.
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
December 25
Tall men were these, the shepherds come from flocks
And wearing sheephides with the dew still wet
Upon the wool…
No further movement
Till the youngest, kneeling still, moved on
From out the rest, and when his eyes had marked
The swaddling bands… and did not shrink at what he saw.
The full words spilled out to her in eagerness
Of quiet flocks, the brightness of the sky…
The music that had sifted
Down, more fragile than the light of stars…
The upswept choirs and surge and flight of wings:
I bring you tidings of great joy, that shall be to all the people: for this day is born to you a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord, in the city of David. And this shall be a sign unto you. You shall find the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger…Glory to God in the highest: and on earth peace to men of goodwill.
(Excerpted from A Woman Wrapped in Silence By John W. Lynch)
