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IMploy half an hour in Christmas night, or in the day, to think upon the most amiable mistery of the birth of Godman, Consider all the cir∣cumstances of it with admiration & loue, represent to your self an Infant laid upon straw in a poor stable, all
trembling with cold, bound up in swadling clouts, exposed to the winds, unknown to men for whose salvation he came into the world; & both he & his holy Mother abandon'd, & in want of all human succours: & fin∣ding your self astonished at so strange a condition, to which you see your Saviour reduced; let your heart, pierced with compassion, & filled with gratitude for little Jesus, break out in these exclamations: ô bounty, ô inconceivable loue of my God! is it possible that my soul should be so dear to thee that for loue of it, thou shouldst subject thy self to so many miseries? O humiliations of my Je∣sus, how do you condemn my pride & my vanity! O amiable Jesus, & so much the more lovely, by how much the more you have debased your self for my sake! What, my soul, canst thou behold a God, who has dispoiled himself of the splendour of his glory, & embraced an extream poverty to inrich thee with his graces & yet en∣dure to take pleasure in the dresses & worldly ornaments of your body?
You see a God which makes him∣self an Infant, as humble, poor, & obedient as an Infant, and you can have vanity, dissimulation, malice & repugnance in obeyying!
2. Approach with confidence this most lovely Infant, & beg of the blessed Virgin & Saint Ioseph, to present you to him. Adore him with respect, because he is your God; Loue him with tenderness, because he is a vi∣ctim of love, that offer'd himself for your sake. Mix your tears with his, weep with compassion ouer his suffe∣rings, whilst he weeps for sorrow ouer your sins: Fear nothing, he is an amiable Infant, & wholly yours, his heart is full of charity for you, his eyes are full of sweetness & tender∣ness; he is all love: Approach him, & embrace him with all the ardour of your heart; loose your self, let your self be swallowed up in this bottom∣less ocean of loue: let your self burn & consume in this sacred fire, & beg of this divine Infant, to be born & live in you; That he may become the soul of your soul, that he may
wean & disengage your heart from the loue of of temporall goods, to imitate his poverty, & that he may make you live a life full of humility, of obedience, & simplicity, to enter thereby into the true spirit of his Infancy.