The Lord has shown his great mercy. Enkindle in your hearts ardent desires and burning wishes for Our Lord to come to you in the virtue of his charity, love of the Father, and of every human being. Say with the Royal Prophet, “I opened my mouth and panted.” And your Savior will respond, “Surely I come quickly; you shall see me very soon.”

Your eyes at the midnight Mass will gaze upon the elevated Host and your lips will utter, “My Lord and my God.” A few minutes more and the little Infant will have come to you. His Immaculate Mother did not hold him more truly in her arms that first Christmas midnight than you will have him, heart to heart. Then all the love of that Infant Redeemer will be poured out upon you. It’s a thirst of the heart of every creature that desires to be loved, and the love which can alone satisfy that craving is the Divine Love.

Let your heart delight in the love your God has for you, personally, individually. No soul ever in ardent fervor desires to unite herself to our Lord in Holy Communion, as our Lord desires to unite him­self to her. So Holy Communion is a delight to your Infant Savior; because he loves you, oh, how immea­surably! He tells you in his heart to heart interview that he has become a little Infant so that you may love him with a human love without fear. He wants you to confide in him, approach to him with a con­viction that his Great Majesty is annihilated that you may no longer see in him but a little Child, with a body and soul just as you have. And the mystery of love is this: that he unites his Body to your body and your soul to his Soul, so that yours may be a member of his very own.

This Christmas Holy Communion will unite you to our Lord, it is my prayer, more intimately than ever before in all your lives so that even the smallest of your actions may by this union be animated with divine Life – and all for the honor of the Father and the salvation of souls. May you participate in his life of charity, and may a divine light illumine you to see the depths and heights of the charity of a God made Man to redeem that which was lost. You participate in the spirit and the immense charity of Christ so as to be born this Christmas to a new life of charity – for “he that abides in charity, abides in God.”

SAINT KATHERINE DREXEL