HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL!

The Grand Priory wishes all its gentle readers a very happy and blessed Christmas.  For many of you this will have been a singular year, stripped of its usual cheer and fellowship; yet, as our Sovereign Lady reminded us in her Christmas broadcast this afternoon, "You are not alone."

No, we are never alone, because as baptised Christians we are assured of the constant companionship of Our Lord and Saviour, today the tiny Infant in the manger in Bethlehem, but today also reigning for all Eternity in Heaven, and of His Blessed Mother, our own mother and advocate.

This feast, above all feasts, may be called the feast of Hope. Hope is always needed, but most poignantly in times of trial. Our hope is ultimately for eternal Salvation, but firstly for an unwavering Faith.

We are reminded of this in the touching poem below penned this morning over 400 years ago by a Jesuit, Blessed Robert Southwell, hanged, drawn and quartered in 1595. Our trials are different, but all trials lead us to Hope, if we open our hearts, and that is the purpose of the this Holy Day. 

THE BURNING BABE

AS I in hoary winter's night stood shivering in the snow,

    Surprised I was with sudden heat, which made my heart to glow;

And lifting up a fearful eye to view what fire was near,

    A pretty babe all burning bright did in the air appear;

Who scorchèd with excessive heat such floods of tears did shed,

    As though His floods should quench His flames which with His tears were fed.

"Alas!" quoth He, "but newly born in fiery heat I fry,

    Yes none approach to warm their hearts or feel my fire but I!

My faultless breast the furnace is; the fuel wounding thorns;

    Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke, the ashes shame and scorns;

The fuel Justice layeth on, and Mercy blows the coals,

    The metal in the furnace wrought are men's defilèd souls;

For which, as now on fire I am to work them to their good,

    So will I melt into a bath to wash them in my blood."

With this He vanished out of sight and swiftly shrank away,

    And straight I callèd unto mind that it was Christmas Day.

May WE approach, daily, to warm our hearts!

A very Happy Christmas to you all!

(Text of poem from Mementoes of the Martyrs, Burns and Oates, 1962. The picture shows a wax Christ-Child made in Palermo, Sicily, by traditional workshops. The Holy Child customarily holds in His hand His Sacred Heart, suffering for us.)