Pre-Christmas at Bethlehem Monastery

Poor Clares do not decorate for Christmas until the very last minute, or just about!  On Saturday, the novitiate went out with wheel barrows, clippers and saws to cut our evergreens for Decorating Day, the eve of Christmas Eve.  Tomorrow we head out again to collect holly berries.  Meanwhile, we continue to meditate on our Blessed Lady and her Holy Child:

My Mother

Better is she than the freshly fallen snow

That for all its whiteness is flaky cold

Lovelier far than the fragrant lily bloom

Whose pure petals blight and brown too soon.

Beyond even linen fuller bleached and pressed

That shrinks and wrinkles at the least caress,

She is most like milk, warm from the breast,

Strongly smooth as ivory, yet sweet and mild,

Purest good for press of a precious child.

Blessed Christmas to all!