“O Flower of Jesse’s stem, you have been raised up as a sign for all peoples; kings stand silent in your presence; the nations bow down in worship before you. Come, let nothing keep you from coming to our aid.”
Hail and blessed be the hour and moment in which the Son of God was born of the most pure Virgin Mary, at midnight, in Bethlehem, in piercing cold.
In that hour, vouchsafe, O my God, to hear my prayer and grant my desires, through the merits of Our Savior Jesus Christ, and of His Blessed Mother. Amen.
Our Novena readings are excerpts from the Christmas letters of St. Paul of the Cross.
I will offer you feastday greetings in prayer from the holy altar, both during this novena and in the coming holy solemnity. I have strong hope that in your blessed soul there will take place your Divine Birth in the Divine Word, for I hope that you are always more a friend of interior solitude and of staying in a holy, peaceful, quiet silence of faith and holy love in the bosom of God, for that is the place of holy, pure, and elevated prayer.
Renew in your heart that mystical Divine Birth so that your soul may be reborn at every moment more to a godlike and holy life. But this mystical Divine Birth is celebrated every day in the most profound internal solitude. In that sacred desert, with a deep abstraction and detachment from every created thing, in perfect nakedness and poverty of soul, and in a sacred silence of faith and love, the human soul is reborn in the Divine Word‑Made‑Man to a new life completely holy and godlike.