Babe of Bethlehem,
Your Star still lights the way.
You are the loveliest flower,
Your Father’s good creation,
A wondrous bouquet.
Kings are approaching,
Bearing gifts,
While this New Day dawns.
This day finds me by Your side,
Reverently watching,
As you nurse
At Mother Mary’s breast.
In the ordinary tasks of Motherhood,
Mary is all gift.
Strangely, I am learning
As I gaze on Your Holy Family.
I squeeze between
The donkey and the lamb,
Service and sacrifice
Becoming everything in Love.
How can I help?
What can I bring You?
Mary reads my heart and smiles.
You have made her a Mother,
And she already knows,
She is mine.
In loving You,
She is loving me,
And I am wrapped in familial sweetness,
Wanting to give in kind.
Precious Infant, You
are changing everything.
The world without is passing,
Almost as a stranger.
I let it pass,
For I, now, know,
I am passing, too.
Without fear, I look on You,
Your days on Earth are numbered,
And yet, they are without end.
I, too, accept Your Father’s will.
Kings are approaching,
Searching for meaning,
and giving all
To come to You.
Wise Men, heartened by Your Star,
Following the signs
And listening with their hearts,
Doing all that they can do,
And accepting from your angels,
What they could not know on their own,
Open hearts and open ears;
I must have the same.
I listen in the dark,
As new day dawns upon this world,
Now, filled with wonder;
I wonder, too.
What shall I give to You,
Having already given You my heart,
And all my dawning days?
Your Soul reaches out at my behest.
I hear You.
I, now, hear You.
It is, of course, the beat of Your Heart
That whispers in it’s smallness,
Yet seems to thunder
Within my breast.
“Souls, souls, souls;
Give me, souls!”
As Mary I become your handmaid.
I answer my “Amen.”
By Joann Nelander
Be Holy! 