Novena In Preparation For Christmas.3
1. Eternal Father, I offer to Thy honor and glory, and for my own salvation, and for the salvation of all the world, the mystery of the birth of our divine Saviour.
Glory be to the Father, etc.
2. Eternal Father, I offer to Thy honor and glory, and for my eternal salvation, the sufferings of the most holy Virgin and of St. Joseph in that long and weary journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem; I offer Thee their anxiety of heart when they found no place wherein to shelter themselves, when the Saviour of the world was to be born.
Glory be to the Father, etc.
3. Eternal Father, I offer to Thy honor and glory, and for my eternal salvation, the stable where Jesus was born, the hard straw which served Him for a bed, the cold He suffered, the swaddling-clothes which bound Him, the tears He shed, and His tender infant cries.
Glory be to the Father, etc.
4. Eternal Father, I offer to Thy honor and glory, and for my eternal salvation, the pain which the holy Child Jesus felt in His tender infant body when He submitted it to the keen knife of circumcision; [pg 549] I offer Thee that precious blood which then first He shed for the salvation of the whole race of man.
Glory be to the Father, etc.
5. Eternal Father, I offer to Thy honor and glory, and for my eternal salvation, the humility, mortification, patience, charity, all the virtues of the Child Jesus; and I thank Thee, and I love Thee, and I bless Thee without end, for this ineffable mystery of the incarnation of the divine Word.
Glory be to the Father, etc.
V. The Word was made flesh.
R. And dwelt among us.
Let Us Pray.
O God, Whose only-begotten Son was made manifest to us in the substance of our flesh; grant, we beseech Thee, that through Him our souls may be inwardly renewed, Whom our eyes have seen externally like unto ourselves; Who livest and reignest with Thee forever and ever. Amen.