Mary's Christmas Dream

After Mass as I reflected on the Gospel Reading for today :
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 1:39-45
"During those days Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah,
where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.
When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the holy Spirit,
cried out in a loud voice and said, "Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy.
Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled."

Father John talked about the hurried pace and frenzy that we see during these last weeks of Advent, the hurry that is all about presents, shopping, food and holidays that we need to remember that we need to keep our inner focus on the reason for Christmas.

While this is a familiar theme for us as Christians and we try to focus our preparation on the coming of our Lord at Christmas I must admit that for me personally and for us as a family we have not 'been there' in so many of our preparations this year. As I reflected on this further I was comforted to remember that God sees our inmost preparations and it is the preparation of our hearts he is most interested in.

And although we as a family have not participated in all the prayers, novena's, traditions and customs that are so much of our family I believe God meets us as we are this year and with all we have been able to offer Him.
Our love of Him and His Son our Lord Jesus to whom we honour and glorify as we live our daily lives.

As I was pondering this I remembered the poem below that we were given on a Christmas Card a few years ago and felt it was so very appropriate to today's whole Mass Readings and the fact we are so close to Christmas.

Mary's Christmas Dream ~

" I had a dream, Joseph, I don't understand it, not really, but I think it was about a birthday celebration for our Son. I think that was what it was all about. The people had been preparing for it for about six weeks. They had decorated the house and bought new clothes. They'd gone shopping many times and bought elaborate gifts. It was peculiar, though, because the presents weren't for our Son. They wrapped them in beautiful paper and tied them with lovely bows and stacked them under a tree. Yes, a tree, Joseph, right in their house. They'd decorated the tree also. The branches were full of glowing balls and sparkling ornaments. There was a figure on the top of the tree. It looked like an angel might look. Oh, it was beautiful. Everyone was laughing and happy. They were all excited about the gifts. They gave the gifts to each other, Joseph, not to our Son. I don't think they even knew Him. They never mentioned His name. Doesn't it seem odd for people to go to all that trouble to celebrate someones birthday if they don't know Him? I had the strangest feeling that if our Son had gone to this celebration He would have been intruding. Everything was so beautiful, Joseph, and everyone so gay, but it made me want to cry. How sad for Jesus - not to be wanted at His own birthday celebration. I'm glad it was only a dream. How terrible, Joseph, if it had been real."

Here it is on You tube

Blessings,