A few years ago I wrote Today in the City, a short prayer book for Advent. Writing it took me deep into the Scriptures, the body of historical knowledge and research, the Jewish law, the translations of ancient words. I learned more than I ever expected about the geography and the architecture, the food and the clothing, the rivers and the mountains. But more than anything else, I was surprised how it became one of the most intimate pieces I’ve written.
Nine reflections on the Nativity from various perspectives—Mary, Joseph, a shepherd, Simeon, even the city of Bethlehem and the stable—aim at bringing the Incarnation closer. You will also find music suggestions and links along with questions for reflection, journaling, and prayer.
Today I'll feature the first chapter, and then subsequent chapters will be delivered via special editions of the weekly Thy Ship newsletter through Advent. You can subscribe here so you don't miss any chapters. I hope this work helps you enter Advent in a new way. Veni, veni, Emmanuel!
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(You can also purchase the whole ebook here, if you'd like).
How to pray with this booklet
“It is not possible to pray without employing the imagination and the understanding,” advised the great spiritual director St. Francis de Sales. “To represent to ourselves the sacred humanity of the Savior… I think it is expedient to make use of all our faculties, including the imagination.”
Why?
In his Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius of Loyola specifically directed the imaginative contemplation of Jesus’ birth: “to see with the sight of the imagination the road from Nazareth to Bethlehem; considering its length and its breadth, and whether the road is level or through valleys or over hills; likewise considering the place or cave of the Nativity, how large, how small, how low, how high, and how it was prepared.”
Why?
For the human person, composed of body and soul, visible and invisible, the sensory and the physical are a primary means of revelation. The Incarnation is the ultimate sensory, physical revelation of God: God making Himself tangibly with us, Emmanuel in every sense. When we pray and contemplate the Incarnation and its meaning, imagination is a gift that can flesh out the mystery and help us encounter the fullness of its meaning for our lives.
This booklet strives to enter the Church’s long tradition of engaging our senses and our imagination for the sake of prayerful contemplation, of engaging the visible to reveal the invisible. These reflections should be seen as a creative and artistic endeavor aimed at bringing the Incarnation closer, while remaining compatible with doctrine and known historical realities. We hope this work will help reveal the realness of the Incarnation.
Each reflection has been imbued with allusions to the Old Testament prophecies, to salvation history, to the Holy Spirit, and to the sacraments. Questions for prayerful reflection are found in the last chapter. Scripture references also accompany each reflection, in hopes that the reflections will be only stepping stones for greater, richer reading of the Scriptures—God’s own word to which nothing need be added except our own participation.
We pray these reflections spark fresh and fruitful contemplation on the darkness-shattering event of the Incarnation, piercing history and our own hearts with light and hope in the God who loves us so intimately.
I. Joseph, a man
We must begin preparations soon. I had hoped the enrollment would come either much sooner or much later in order to spare her either the difficulty of travel so near to the child’s coming, or so soon after his birth. I know she would be more comfortable here among her women, but we cannot change the decree.
Sometimes, in the midst of the chores, I find myself watching her from across the room. I forget the tool that needs repair or the wood that needs to be planed, and feel caught up in awe. It’s her fullness that captures me. She is so whole. She is so entirely herself. It is as though she is a vessel that contains precisely as much as it was made to contain, and not a single drop more or less. It is as if she is intact, somehow; I know she has suffered, has felt the urge to doubt or withdraw, but she has never shrouded even small parts of herself with falseness or fear.
In the closeness of our home I see her wholeness more brightly than I could before, and my heart praises God for his goodness. I might have missed this closeness, if the Lord had not sent the dream. Before, the mystery had seemed crushingly unbelievable, disorienting, deeply conflicted with who I knew Mary to be. She has always spoken the truth, yet her story was impossible. Even now, the mystery escapes my understanding. But I praise God for his mercy. He has filled my fears not with understanding, but with trust. He gives me what is necessary for trust.
My expectations for life have changed in every way, and yet not at all. I wanted to marry her and live simply together, seeking the will of God, following his laws, and raising children to do the same. I wanted to provide her with a home, with food, with coins for the market, with safety and security. I wanted to work for her good and her joy.
And all these hopes have come to be: we share a home; we work together for our needs; we wait for a child. My life is the one I had hoped for, and at the same time it stretches as far from those old hopes as the east is from the west. All has become something new, something more than it once was. I trust the living God; I must. He alone could conceive these mysteries that are deeper than any prophet could foresee.
I watch Mary rest her hand where the child grows and, again, I feel the rush of anticipation, a father’s daydreams. What will he look like? Stories to tell him. I will teach him how to pray. Then, again, the rush of daunting follows: the child is God’s son. How can I raise him? Does she also question?
She catches my gaze. “I ponder many things about him,” she says. I do not know whether she means our God, or the child who is his son. Perhaps she means both.
Pray: Ex 25:8, Ex 40:34-35; Num 9:15, Is 7:14, Lk 1:39-45, Lk 2:1-5
Listen: “No Words,” “Always Faithful” by The Vigil Project
The subsequent eight chapters will be delivered via my newsletter. Subscribe here so you don't miss them. (You can also purchase the whole ebook here, if you'd like).
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