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 It is a custom with many Christians to anticipate the arrival of Christmas a considerable time beforehand by fitting up in their homes a crib to represent the birth of Jesus Christ; but few there are who think of preparing their hearts, in order that the Infant Jesus may be born in them, and there find His repose. Among these few, however, we would be reckoned, in order that we too may be made worthy to burn with that happy flame which gives contentment to souls on this earth, and bliss in Heaven.

Let us consider on this first day how the Eternal Word had no other end in becoming man than to inflame us with His Divine love. Let us ask light of Jesus Christ and of His most holy Mother, and so let us begin.

Adam, our first parent, sins; ungrateful for the great benefits conferred on him, he rebels against God, by a violation of the precept given him not to eat of the forbidden fruit. On this account God is obliged to drive him out of the earthly paradise in this world, and in the world to come to deprive not only Adam, but all the descendants of this rebellious creature, of the heavenly and everlasting paradise which He had prepared for them after this mortal life.

Behold, then, all mankind together condemned to a life of pain and misery, and forever shut out from Heaven. But hearken to God, Who, as Isaias tells us in his fifty-second chapter, would seem, after our manner of understanding, to give vent to His affliction in lamentations and wailings: And now what have I here, saith the Lord, for My people is taken away gratis. [53:5] "And now," says God, "what delight have I left in Heaven, now that I have lost men, who were my delight?" My delights