Joyous Christmas!

Just a few lines I love from Gerard Manley Hopkins’ (1884-1889) poem, The Blessed Virgin Compared to the Air We Breathe. 

 Nazareth  1842 

If I have understood,
She holds high motherhood
Towards all our ghostly good
And plays in grace her part
About man’s beating heart,
Laying, like air’s fine flood,
The deathdance in his blood;
Yet no part but what will
Be Christ our Saviour still.
Of her flesh he took flesh:
He does take fresh and fresh,
Though much the mystery how,
Not flesh but spirit now
And makes, O marvellous!
New Nazareths in us,
Where she shall yet conceive
Him, morning, noon, and eve;
New Bethlehems, and he born
There, evening, noon, and morn—
Bethlehem or Nazareth,
Men here may draw like breath
More Christ and baffle death;
Who, born so, comes to be
New self and nobler me
In each one and each one
More makes, when all is done,
Both God’s and Mary’s Son.

New Nazareths in us. New Bethlehems. New selfs and nobler we.

All because of Christ. O marvelous! Indeed.

Worth every celebration. Every gift. Every display of love today.

May it be merry.