As we turn our eyes on Bethlehem and away from the rich and busy world, we recall the following lines:
A little Child,
A shining star,
A stable rude,
The door ajar.
Yet in that place
So crude, forlorn,
The hope of all
The world was born.
If only the people of this world could be made to realize where lie the things that are to their peace! As long as they seek for happiness without the Child of Bethlehem, they will never find it. All they will find at best will be something akin to thrills, which quickly pass and leave behind them a sickening sense of disappointment and frustration.
Everything in the event and scene of Christmas points to love. The birth of Our Lord is the incomparable feast of love. There we see the adorable Infant, God clothed in human form; the most holy Virgin, spotless and pure in body and soul, who is also a pure and spotless mother; a chaste and holy guardian and foster father-all amid surroundings so poor, cold and lonely! Why all this, except to give to our world an exhibition of sacrificial love of which it could not have dreamed, to show the priceless value of human souls in heaven’s eyes, to enkindle in us a return of boundless love of the divine source and bounty now so clearly and richly manifested in our behalf.
It was for love like this that we were made; for love such as this do we hunger and thirst, yearn and pine unceasingly, however obscurely we may apprehend the meaning and ultimate purpose of our appetites and’ cravings; a love of which all other loves are but dim shadows, mere glimpses, far-off and broken reflections, limited and imperfect, fragile and frail; a love that is complete and perfect, infinitely purified, elevated and intensified, changeless and eternal, for which our souls were created, of which the love exemplified at Christmas is a foretaste, and without which we can never be satisfied and quiet in our souls.
Spiritual Riches of the Rosary Mysteries, Charles J. Callan OP and John F. McConnell, MM, pp.37-38
