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Morning Devotion for the Season of Christmas

December 29, 2023

The Invitatory

Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost;

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.

Reading: The Nativity by C.S. Lewis

Among the oxen (like an ox I’m slow) I see a glory in the stable grow Which, with the ox’s dullness might at length Give me an ox’s strength.

Among the

asses (stubborn I as they) I see my Saviour where I looked for

hay; So may my beastlike folly learn at least The

patience of a beast.

Among the

sheep (I like a sheep have strayed) I watch the manger where my

Lord is laid; Oh that my baa-ing nature would win thence Some woolly

innocence!

Meditation: Jo Ann B. Jones

I think of the nativity scene that is on my center hall table. C.S. Lewis reflects on the same aspect of the Christmas story. He makes creative use of the basic concept of the French carol and turns it on its head. He does not anthropomorphize the beasts by giving them a ‘glad spell’ which allows them to participate in the human spirit of Christmas generosity; rather, he inverts the familiar sentiment and wishes that he was able to respond to Christ’s presence with the virtues which symbolically characterize these same animals.

Lewis paints a portrait in which the power of Christmas begins in the Christ child, a ‘glory in the stable’ that the animals perceive through their own lens.  He observes them taking up their perspective; first, ‘among the asses’ who find a child where they sought hay, and hopes to receive from that very child the grace to become like those who wait so patiently when they find their plates empty.

The direction of Lewis’ poetic motion is in stark contrast to that of the French carol, in which the gift is to the Christ-child, given with human intentions in the mode of a donkey, and, in many ways, “The Nativity” seems to capture better the spirit of the season. Lewis offers a vision whereby we may be led to seek after the strength, patience and innocence symbolized in the animals of the Christmas story. At Christmas, we long to receive the grace that enters into the world through the humblest objects around us, most especially, a newborn baby; it is not the gifts that we can give, but rather the gifts we are given, which truly make Christmas a holy day. Lewis summed up Christmas in one sentence: 'The Son of God became a man to enable men to become the sons of God

Lord’s Prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven,

   hallowed be thy Name,

   thy kingdom come,

   thy will be done,

       on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses,

   as we forgive those

       who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation,

   but deliver us from evil.