“When I was in prayer, I would try to keep Jesus Christ, our Lord and our Good, present within me. I would think about a scene in his life and then try to picture it with my mind’s eye.” Teresa of Avila, The Book of My Life (1562)
Very soon now it will be Christmas Eve, the night we remember the birth of baby Jesus, the newborn who was swaddled and lying in a manger in a barn because there was no room for him or his parents anywhere else.
To prepare myself for Christmas, I’m thinking of ways to keep the Christ child alive in my heart. In The Book of My Life, Teresa says she would remember the life stories of Jesus when she was praying, picturing him in her mind’s eye. I am doing that very thing these days—thinking of a baby boy who grew into a young man and remembering the life he lived which included many acts of social justice and ended with the humiliation and shame of death on a cross.
My Christmas wish is to find Jesus present within me every morning—“born in us today,” as we sing in the hymn—and I would like to be the Christ child's hands on earth. Will you join me? Together we can make Christmas come every single day of our lives.
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