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"I. The Sun of justice that rose on Christmas morn did not shine on the Jews only. The light that shone upon the rejoicing earth was a light that was to enlighten the Gentiles as well as to be the glory of the people of Israel. The feast of the Epiphany was the declaration of the world-wide dominion of the new-born King. It proclaimed that the kingdoms of this world were to be the kingdoms of the Lord and of His Christ. Rejoice with the Infant King in His universal sovereignty, and pray that His kingdom may speedily be acknowledged by all His subjects.

2. Those who came to visit Jesus on the Epiphany were three kings. They came as the representatives of all earthly monarchies. They came to do homage and to adore the universal King of the whole earth. What a shadow of a shade is all temporal dominion compared with the dominion of Jesus ! What unlimited homage we all owe Him ! How we should rejoice to acknowledge Him our King and Lord by our loyal obedience to Him !

3. This festival is especially the festival of converts. Our ancestors were once pagans until the Vicar of Christ sent to our beloved country the apostle who proclaimed to us the faith of Christ. This faith in many lands has faded now, and mockery sits on Juda's throne. Alas, to think that those who had the inheritance of the faith have lost it ! How can I ever be grateful enough for the light that shines on me ! "

Meditations for Christmas . By Rev. Richard F. Clarke S.J. The Catholic Truth Society, London 1891

"1 . One of the most difficult things in the world is to submit to anything that lowers us in the opinion of men and tends to give them a false impression respecting us. Our self-love revolts against the wrongful suspicion, and nature is eager to prove its injustice. Our Lord in the circumcision submitted to a rite which seemed to imply that He was born in sin, in order to teach us, at the very opening of His life, a willingness to be misunderstood and judged guilty of faults we have never committed, and to be credited with natural disadvantages which we do
not really possess.

2. We cannot all aim as high as this, or at least we have not yet reached this love of being wrongly judged and despised without cause. But at least we can learn to recognize how utterly opposed to the spirit of Christ is any attempt to make ourselves out better than we are, and to try and lead others to attribute to us virtues or advantages that are not ours, whether it be generosity, or piety, or learning, or riches, or high birth, or wide influence, or a distinguished position in the world.

3. If we want to test our humility, we cannot have a safer touchstone than this willingness to be underrated or disesteemed without any fault of our own. Happy those who can rejoice to suffer shame without giving cause for it ! Am I one of these ? "

Meditations for Christmas . By Rev. Richard F. Clarke S.J. The Catholic Truth Society, London 1891

"1. It seems strange that the spotless Lamb of God should have been subjected to a rite which was the occasion on which Jewish boys were freed from original sin. Was it not derogatory to Jesus, and calculated to produce the false impression that He was not the Son of God, born of a virgin-mother, but a sinful son of Adam, like those around ? Sometimes it is not only lawful, but a duty, to do what is calculated to mislead others, when God enjoins it or some higher motive exists for it.

2. What was this higher motive in the case of the circumcision of Jesus? It was that He might become like us in all things, sin only excepted; that He might be made sin for us, i.e., might bear all the consequences of sin, and the suffering that is the result of sin. O merciful Savior! May my heart be ever full of gratitude to Thee for this Thy divine condescension !

3. Our Lord was circumcised also because He came to fulfill all the Jewish law, with all its rites and ceremonies. He exalted it by His obedience and exact accomplishment of all its details. So I ought to love and obey every enactment of the Church, every ceremony and every detail of her ritual and discipline."

Meditations for Christmas . By Rev. Richard F. Clarke S.J. The Catholic Truth Society, London 1891

"1. At the circumcision, Jewish children received their name as other children do at their baptism. Mary's little Son received the name of Jesus or Deliverer, because He was to deliver men from the slavery of sin. This was His appointed office by the divine command: to put an end to the slavery in which men were held by the devil. He was sent to deliver me from the bondage under which I have long labored, the bondage to the opinion of men, the bondage to ill-temper, the bondage to passion, the bondage to selfishness, the bondage to self-will, the bondage to riches or comforts. O Jesus, Deliverer of those in bondage, by Thy sacred circumcision deliver me !

2. Jesus is also our Deliverer from the terrible consequences of sin. Our sins were remitted by the shedding of His Precious Blood. Without the shedding of blood, says St. Paul, there is no remission. What reason I have to dread the consequences due to my sins! Yet Jesus can and will deliver me from them, if I love Him as I ought.

3. Jesus also is the Deliverer of all creation from the curse which came upon the whole earth at the Fall. He has sanctified it by the drops of His Precious Blood that fell upon it. Hence-forward it became a new earth, and one day He will cleanse it from all its impurities, and renew it to the heavenly beauty, and make it worthy to be the home of His elect. "

Meditations for Christmas . By Rev. Richard F. Clarke S.J. The Catholic Truth Society, London 1891

"I. The week succeeding the birth of her Son had been to Mary a week of exquisite joy, one long ecstasy of heavenly delight, with no sorrow to mar the brightness of the sunshine of His presence. But on the octave of His Nativity all was changed. She began to realize the fact that Jesus had come to suffer — that He Who was infinitely dearer to her than the whole world was to be the Man of Sorrows — and Mary's joy was changed to bitter sorrow. Thus it is for all those who love God. The times when earth seems unable to contain the greatness of their joy are sure to be followed by sorrow and by pain.

2. It seemed but a trifle which thus changed the complexion of Mary's life. The pain that Jesus had to suffer had but a passing smart. Why should she thus grieve over it? It was because it betokened the indignities that He would have to suffer, the character of a victim for sin that He had taken upon Himself. Often a mere trifle destroys the brightness of our life. God uses matters seemingly trivial to teach us our weakness.

3. Yet Mary would not have had it otherwise. She knew it was the will of God, and that was enough for her. Would that I could learn this lesson more perfectly! Then nothing would destroy my peace, as nothing destroyed Mary's. "

Meditations for Christmas . By Rev. Richard F. Clarke S.J. The Catholic Truth Society, London 1891

"1. On the first day of the year we commemorate the first shedding of the Precious Blood for us. Christmas week, as it draws to a close, introduces us to the new-born King in the weakness of the nature that He shared with sinful man. We now learn that He came, not to manifest His power and majesty, but to be made like unto us in all things as far as it was possible for One Who was the Eternal Son of God. We begin to appreciate that He is flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone.

2. To-day He also proclaims that He is come to suffer for us. We listen to His first cry of pain, and see the strange spectacle of the first commencement of that Life of which the agony upon the cross was the final consummation. How shall we ever thank Him as we ought ? How great a joy we should consider it if we have the privilege of suffering some little pain for Him in return!

3. He also declares to us to-day that He is come to suffer with us, to take part in all the miseries of humanity, to learn by His own experience all that we have to endure in this valley of tears. This it is which should console us in all our troubles. Christ not only knows them all, but has in His mercy felt them all Himself in His sacred Humanity. "

Meditations for Christmas . By Rev. Richard F. Clarke S.J. The Catholic Truth Society, London 1891

Gerard van Honthorst  (1592–1656) Adoration of the Shepherds (c. 1622). Pomerania State Museum

"The first who came to pay their homage to the new-born King were the shepherds who were watching in the fields of Bethlehem, and to whom an angel had announced the birth of Christ the Lord. They received this honor because —

1. They were poor, and therefore were well suited to gather round the King Who came to live in poverty on earth. The Eternal Father chose poverty for His well-beloved Son, and therefore poverty must be better than riches. The poor are to be envied rather than pitied so long as their poverty is not due to their own sin or folly. How many who have saved their souls in poverty would have lost them if they had been rich ! Hence, if you are poor, do not
regret your poverty, but rather rejoice in it.

2. They were simple of heart, untainted by the world's deceits. None but good, simple men would have thus come in the darkness of the night, to the stable of Bethlehem, to find their Savior and their King. God loves simplicity. '* If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be light-some," says Our Lord, and He thereby describes the happy lot of those whose one aim is to do their work with simplicity for God alone. Is this my spirit?

3. They were shepherds. The occupation is one which God seems to love. The man after God's own heart was a shepherd. Our Lord calls Himself the Good Shepherd. The apostles' dignity lies in the fact that they were shepherds of the flock. Every Christian is a shepherd, in that some sheep or lands are committed to his care. Am I a zealous shepherd of the sheep of Christ ?

Meditations for Christmas . By Rev. Richard F. Clarke S.J. The Catholic Truth Society, London 1891

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo  (1617–1682)

"On the night of the Nativity a countless multitude of the heavenly host were singing the praises of the new-born King. Let us listen to them.

1. They are singing Gloria in excelsis Deo — '* Glory to God in the highest !" It is the first song they have sung on earth since the Fall. It is sung on the occasion of the infinite humiliation of the Son of God. Yet they sing, Glory to God in the highest ! It must, therefore, be a source of unspeakable glory to God that He has taken the form of a servant, that He has humbled Himself to the very dust. If this is such a source of glory to God, my true glory must consist in humbling myself.

2. They are also singing of peace to men. What sort of peace . Not external peace, for Christ came not to bring peace, but a sword; but true peace, internal peace, that tranquillity of soul that nothing can destroy. This is the boon that Christ gives to all who love Him, in proportion to their love.

3. But peace not for all, only for men of good will. Christ, indeed, brought peace to all, but all did not accept it, only those whose good will and loyal spirit of submission made them ready to acknowledge Him as their Lord, and whom, therefore, the good will of God had predestined to the eternal peace and joy of heaven. God grant that I may be one of these !"

Meditations for Christmas . By Rev. Richard F. Clarke S.J. The Catholic Truth Society, London 1891

Tradition asserts that besides Joseph and Mary there was present in the stable at Bethlehem a little maid, who had accompanied them from Nazareth and ministered to Our Lady and the new-born Child.

1. Consider the happiness of this little servant who was privileged to wait upon the holy Mother of God. If to wait upon a queen is considered an honor worthy of maidens of the highest birth, how much more to wait upon the Queen of heaven ! Angels must have envied her the task, and longed to be allowed to share in it. I, too, can wait upon Mary by walking in processions in her honor, by kneeling before her statue, by offering her flowers or votive candies, or, if this is out of my power, by declaring to her my loyalty and desire to serve her.

2. Consider this maiden had a still greater privilege. She ministered to God Himself as He lay in the manger. She had the singular honor of being the first after His Mother and St. Joseph to wait upon the King of kings ; nay, to carry Him in her arms, and to look upon the face of God ; to fold Him to her bosom. How pure and holy she must have been ! How pure and holy I ought to be who in holy Communion am brought into still closer contact with the sacred body of Christ !

3. Consider how you would have acted had you been that little servant. Imagine yourself ministering to the Infant Jesus. How unworthy of the task, yet how eager to fulfill it well, to anticipate the wishes of Mary! Do I thus minister to Him in His brethren?

Meditations for Christmas . By Rev. Richard F. Clarke S.J. The Catholic Truth Society, London 1891

MARCANTONIO FRANCESCHINI Bologna 1648 - 1729 Saint Joseph with the Christ Child

At no great distance from the Mother of God stands His holy foster-father St. Joseph, the third person of that earthly trinity. What can we learn from him ?

1. He is the true husband of Mary, united to her by a closer bond than any on earth save that which exists between the Mother and the Son. He IS, moreover, the true earthly father of Jesus in everything except the fact of carnal generation. He has committed to him the care of God Himself, and of her who is dearer to God than all the world beside. He is, therefore, next to Mary, of all mankind the most privileged and the most exalted. How, then, can we honor him enough ?

2. When God gives to any one an office. He gives him the virtues and the qualities which are required for its perfect exercise. What, then, must have been the virtues of St. Joseph ! He must have had every virtue, not only in an eminent degree, but in a degree to which none other of the sons of men ever attained. In prudence, justice, humility, charity, he was far above all others. I therefore must ask of him every grace that I need.

3. Above all, St. Joseph was eminent for his unspotted purity. Many theologians assert that he was sanctified in his mother's womb. None save Mary was ever so pure as he. This it was that qualified him for his intimate union with Jesus and Mary. If I desire to be united to them, I must be pure of heart. St. Joseph, obtain for me this grace of purity !

Meditations for Christmas . By Rev. Richard F. Clarke S.J. The Catholic Truth Society, London 1891