Devotion of the day: the three preparations to make for Christmas

Mind preparation. Consider the fervor that everyone wakes up to prepare for Christmas; people come to church more, pray more often; it is a very special feast of Jesus… Will you alone remain cold? Consider how many graces you would deprive yourself, making yourself unworthy, with your carelessness, to arrange your heart for the spiritual birth of the Child Jesus! Don't you feel you need it? Think about it and prepare with great commitment to receive such graces.

Preparation of the heart. You look at the hut: that charming Child crying in a poor manger, don't you know that he is your God, who came down from Heaven to suffer for you, to save you, to be loved? In staring at that child's Innocence, don't you feel your heart stolen? Jesus wants you to love him or at least you want to love him. So shake your laziness, your negligence: fervent in piety, prepare yourself with the greatest love.

Practical preparation. The Church invites us to prepare ourselves for solemn feasts, with novenas, with fasts, with indulgences; the holy souls, preparing themselves with fervor for Christmas, what Graces and what consolations they did not obtain from Jesus! Let us prepare ourselves: 1 ° With the longest and most fervent prayer, with frequent ejaculations; 2 ° With the daily mortification of our senses; 3 ° By doing a good work in the Novena, or an alms, or an act of virtue. Do you propose it? Will you do it consistently?

PRACTICE. - Recite nine Hail Marys; makes a sacrifice