I came across this profound and moving text some time ago and had forgotten about it until today’s beautiful feast of the Immaculate Conception dawned. Enjoy and a blessed Advent to you all!

Meditation in Advent by the Bishop of Aberdeen December 8th 1956

The process of human generation is a never-ending occasion of interest and wonder.  The intercourse of bodies that accompanies the intercourse of minds and wills expresses a love of which the angels might be jealous.

A mutual giving is worlds apart from a mutual taking.  What people do not know when they go to the altar is that the best wedding party is a bevy of virtues: humility, detachment, self-control, the habit of giving; not to speak of a bevy of arts and habits, including the habit of laughter.

Chastity cannot exist alone.  She must have her entourage.  From such pleasant company she can retire to her bridal couch and understand the words of the Sarum rite: “with my body I thee worship”.  If a person is worth dying for, she is worth everything short of it.  We are on our way to Bethlehem…. We must now examine our consciences on the matter of chastity.  The vowed to celibacy may bethink themselves that their consecration must carry much more than a bachelor freedom from the cares and chores of domestic society: it involves a fathering and mothering in the mystical body of Christ.  The married might ask themselves if a visit from the Christ-child to their home would find there faith and love and trust, and no child missing that God wanted to put into their arms.  Having put their house in order, they can go forward bravely to Bethlehem and invite the child to come and live under their roof.