What Can I Give Him? An Advent Series

  Happy New (Liturgical) Year! I hope the beginning of this Advent finds you in a place of peace, joy and love. More than that, though, I hope the beginning of this season of eager waiting finds you thirsty for Christ. Whatever 2014 has been for you; whatever trials the Lord has seen fit to place in your life; whether you arrive at the door of this new liturgical year with a leap and a bound of joyful energy, or whether you have to crawl over the threshold: here is a new beginning. As we journey towards the birth of Christ, we're invited to cast off everything that this year has set upon our shoulders and begin preparing a place in our hearts for a babe.

Last Christmas I wrote about making room for Christ, and my own incapacity to do so:

Too often Christmas is our busiest time of the year. Between family gatherings, cooking, cleaning, extra driving and gift-wrapping, not much room is left for the Babe and His holy parents. Like the innkeeper in Bethlehem all those years ago, we want things to be perfect for our visitors. We clean and tidy and make sure everything is ship-shape. But not for the Saviour - for the world. The rooms of our heart are filled to the brim with busyness and merry-making and stress. In the end we relegate the Holy Family to a little shed in the back garden until we find space for them.

As a child, I always disliked the "character" of the innkeeper in the nativity narrative. Why was he so stupid? Couldn't he see that Mary and Joseph were really really special? And she was going to have a baby! How could he possibly turn them out into the cold and put them in that shabby little lean-to where the pigs lived? 

I am the innkeeper. 

I think to a certain extent we all are. We may be well-intentioned. We may have reserved a special place in the inn for weary travellers and expectant mothers. We may even  be anticipating with baited breath the arrival of one heralded by a star. But sometimes we forget.

This year, I don't want to forget. As this new season of grace begins, I want to commit to a Christ-filled Advent. I want to strip back from all the cacophony of my brain and my year and my life.... and stop. I want to steep myself in silence and in scripture, and sit at the manger-side.

This Advent, I want to give Him my heart: my poor, humble, imperfect heart. At the end of the day, it's all I have to give.

~~~

What can I give Him

Poor as I am?

If I were a shepherd

I would bring a lamb;

If I were a Wise Man

I would do my part;

Yet what can I give Him:

Give Him my heart.

What can I give Him?

I will give my heart.

~~~

So I invite you to join with me in making room for a babe this Advent. Every day I intend to post the daily readings and a short reflection, sharing what the Lord is saying to me as I make a little more space for Him every day. I can't wait to hear your Advent stories too.

Let's dye our hearts the colour of the Scriptures and listen to what our beautiful King wants to say to us in the stillness and peace. Let's adore Him this Advent.

~~~

Hail and blessed be the hour and the moment at which the Son of God was born of a most pure Virgin, at a stable, at midnight in Bethlehem, in the piercing cold. At that hour vouchsafe, I beseech thee, to hear my prayer and grant my desires, through our Saviour Jesus Christ and His most blessed Mother.

AMDG