"O Jesus, Jesus:
to enter that stable into which Thy divine mother has gone for refuge I must await the holy hour when the Church will call me there. Today I may only kneel at its threshold and think of the love which it contains. While kneeling there I feel my heart filled with compassion, for it was under a roof of straw, in a cave, and on the straw of a stable Thou, the God of Heaven and earth, the Desired of nations, the immortal King of ages, wast born...

"And yet, O my Savior, it is not over Thy mother's poverty and anguish on that night at Bethlehem, nor is it over Thine own destitution and sufferings that I must weep. Much more must I weep over myself. For on this night of mystery Thou wilt descend again to us, and our hearts will be like those inns of Bethlehem in which there was no room for Thee. O Jesus, I have received Thee badly so often in the past, perhaps even repulsed Thee. Preserve me today from a like misfortune. Prepare for Thyself the place which Thou wilt fill within my soul. And as, formerly, Mary defended Thee against the coldness of the night and the winter's frost by pressing Thee to her heart, I would make Thee forget the ingratitude of men by the strength of my adoration and my love. Amen."

~ L'Abbe Max Caron, The Expectation of Jesus: Meditations for Every Day in Advent, 1900.