The Nativity

Ask God our Lord for the grace that all my intentions, actions and works may be directed purely to the service and praise of his Divine Majesty.

See with the imagination the road from Nazareth to Bethlehem; consider the cave, whether it is wide or narrow, low or high, and how it was prepared.

Ask for an inner knowledge of the Lord, who became man for me, that I may love him more and follow him more closely.

1. See the persons: Our Lady, Joseph, the maidservant, and the Child Jesus just born. Make myself a poor, unworthy little servant, looking at them, contemplating them and serving them in their needs as if I were there.
2. Listen to and notice what they say, and reflecting on myself, draw some profit from it.
3. Look at and consider what they do: the journeying and the labour, so that the Lord might be born in the greatest poverty, and after so many labours, hunger, thirst, heat and cold, might die on the cross; and all this for me.
4. Reflect on myself and draw some spiritual profit.