Third Joyful Mystery: The Nativity

"And while they were there the time came for her to be delivered. And she gave birth to her first-born son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn." (Luke 2:6-7)

As she placed her child in the manger and looked upon Him with a perfect mother's love, she could not yet have known how His perfect love for all mankind would transform the world.

As she wondered what the future might hold for this child of hers, perhaps her mind turned to those words of the angel, all those months before, and she contemplated what it might mean to be the Son of the Most High?

As she gazed upon Him with great joy and wonder, perhaps there was also a tinge of trepidation about their future, a future that would pierce her heart with sorrow and His hands and feet with nails. 

Love came into the world and Love would suffer for us; so that our sufferings would no longer be in vain, but might, like Mary's, unite us more closely with Him.


As she reflected on those who came to pay tribute to her son – the Shepherds and the Magi, the lowly and the rich, the Jew and the Gentile – could she have imagined that one day peoples of every nation would gather together in the name of her son?

As she cradled Him in her arms, little could she have known that this small weight would lift the heavy burden of sin from the world. And yet as she contemplated the Scriptures perhaps she wondered if He was the one spoken of in Genesis, the seed of the woman that shall crush the serpent's head?

Surely, though, as she pondered all these things in her heart, one thing she knew for sure: nothing would ever be the same again.

– Br Toby Lees OP