December 24
O You that sits upon the cherubim, God of hosts come, show Your face, and we shall be saved. (Pause, Reflect, Pray: Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be and/or Pro Sanctity Prayer)
"Now there were shepherds in that region living in the fields and keeping the night watch over their flock."
I wonder why God chose the shepherds as the ones to visit first his newborn son. Hey seemed to be an unusual choice for the ones who might come to adore. They were used to miracles of nature in seeing the daily life and death of their sheep, but nothing like this in nature had ever happened before. I imagine they were frightened when they saw and heard the angels. Would they have even known what an angel was when they saw the angel? They knew something unusual was happening but it was unlike anything else they or anyone had ever experienced. In the most ordinary event of human life, the most unusual event takes place. In the birth of a baby, God is born for us. It is beyond what any of us could have hoped for and I am filled with wonder each time I think of it. In the flesh and blood, in the joy and messiness of a baby, God is born for us! Every day, Lord, you are hidden beneath the surface of daily life.
Dear Jesus, I pray for the grace to see the unusual in the ordinary, to see the presence of the divine in what is so very human.
