Saturday, December 22, 2012

Jesus Child, Jesus Love, Grant Us Your Blessing



In December 1922, Saint Luigi Orione sends his Christmas greetings to his religious, asking them to be one in the heart of Jesus.

… I have come to offer you my most affectionate greetings, and to make the holiest vows in the joy of the coming Christmas feasts. In my soul, I make these vows and wishes every day, in this soul which for the great part lives your life, your joys and your griefs, in this soul which prays at the Lord's altar every day, but which will supplicate for you more fervidly on the most happy Christmas night.
Oh how I should like to have been able to write to each of you individually on this propitious occasion; but you yourselves will understand that this would have been impossible for me. Therefore, embracing you all spiritually, it is for me the sweetest grace to write to you together, with the sweet affection of a brother and a father in Christ, which God alone knows.


 I must say that it seems to me more beautiful to have you all here in front of me in my heart, all on the altar united together, this sweet Christmas, around the Jesus child, and to say the same words of charity to you all, words which so softly unite us; this charity has such all-embracing arms that it is impossible to see either mountains or seas, or boundaries and barriers of nationality; this charity that unites us, as Scripture puts it, which is what happened in the hearts of Jonah and David—and that makes us One heart and one soul in life, in death and hereafter, because in charity we live in God and man lives for ever!
In these Christmas days, in which Christian souls feel all the chaste joys of the faith and of the love of Jesus, and the mystic poetry which breathes from the crib, where the poor and the simple go in pilgrimage, and over which the angels fly and make feast in the light and the hymn of glory proclaiming God's peace to men of good will; in these joyous solemnities, I send to each and every one of you, my brothers, my sons, my crown, not only my wishes for all that is good, for all celestial consolation, but, as I make for you each more fervent vow, I lay at God's feet a great prayer, which is love and charity.

 
It is the same prayer that Christ our Lord made for his disciples and apostles before he left them: oh Lord, make us one with you, that we may be with you always in your heart so worthy of adoration! Grant us, oh Jesus child, oh Jesus love, your sweet blessing! Amen.

Letter to the Sons of Divine Provindece. Tortona, 8th December 1922. Feast of the Immaculate Conception. A priceless treasure, Volume One, pp. 257 – 259. 266

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