I truly now can say to you, as Christmas drifts away,
This was an Advent to remember and a special Christmas day.
Our families all had fasted and petitioned God for grace,
With what a joy to see at Mass the peace on each ones face!
With four weeks of preparation, and sacrifices made,
We came to place our gifts of straw where Jesus would be laid.
Each piece of hay an offering, a penitence of love;
It was all to welcome Jesus, the Christ child from above.
The church was filled with candles; an ethereal kind of light,
While the choir sang out like angels just before it turned midnight.
When he spoke the consecration, “Father, Son and Holy Ghost”
The anticipation ended, then Father raised the Host.
Thank you, God, for Jesus, and thank You for his birth.
We thank you for the time he spent those years upon the earth.
But mostly now we thank you God, he rose up from the dead,
That we may feast each day we live on Consecrated Bread.
Donna Sue Berry
Originally written on December 27, 2011
Art: Advent Wreath: Adventkranz (liturgisch) |Source=own work |Date=2. Dez. 2006 |Author=Andrea Schaufler |Permission=yes |other_versions= }}; A German nativity scene, detail, Holy Family with the three wise men; Author not listed; Das Christuskind (The Christchild), Melchior Paul von Deschwanden, by 1881, PD-US; Illustration from 1908 Chambers’s Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language. Pyx, n. (R.C.) the sacred box in which the Host is kept after consecration, Rev. Thomas Davidson 1856-1923 (ed.); Wikimedia Commons.
