The Poverty of the Infant Jesus
EXTRACT
FROM The Incarnation, Birth and Infancy
of Jesus, St. Alphonsus Liguori
with
Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur
Invenientes
infantem . . . positum in præsipio.
"You
shall fine the Infant laid in a manger."-----St. Luke 2: 16
The Holy
Church, in contemplating this great mystery and prodigy of
a God being born in a stable, exclaims, full of admiration, "O great
mystery! O wonderful sacrament! For animals to behold the Lord lying in
a manger."
In order to
contemplate with tenderness and love the birth of Jesus,
we must pray the Lord to give us a lively faith. If without faith we
enter into the grotto of Bethlehem, we shall have nothing but a feeling
of compassion at seeing an Infant reduced to such a state of poverty
that, being born in the depth of winter, He is laid in a manger of
beasts; without fire, and in the midst of a cold cavern. But if we
enter with faith, and consider what an excess of bounty and love it was
in a God to humble Himself to appear like a little Child, wrapped in
swaddling-clothes, placed on straw, crying and shivering with cold,
unable to move, depending for subsistence on His mother's milk, how is
it possible that we should not feel ourselves gently constrained to
give all our affections to this Infant God, Who has reduced Himself to
this state to make us love Him! St. Luke says that the shepherds, after
having visited Jesus in the manger, returned
glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen.
[Luke 2:20] And yet what had they seen? Nothing more than a poor Child
trembling with cold on a little straw; but, being enlightened by faith,
they recognized in this Child the excess of Divine love; and inflamed
by this love they went on their way glorifying God, that they had the
happiness to behold a God Who had
emptied Himself [Phil. 2:7] and annihilated Himself for the love
of men.
Affections
and Prayers
