A New Year: 2003

A New Year has begun. Let us trust in Gods boundless love. We can look for comfort and help into the past (our own as well as that of our ancestors) and see and understand what the Lord has given to our world. We must also look forward and be God's tools on the buildingsite of our world and time. May these few lines comfort and inspire you. They were written by one of our holy women, who lived here in Helfta in the 13th century.

Mechtild von Hakeborn
From The book of special grace
Book III
The divine burden of a Christian

God - given as a present
When the Gospel was read (Luke:2) it was as if God the father said to her (Mechtild) Go to the virgin mother of my son and ask her to give my son to you with all the joy she had when giving birth to him, together with all the good I had bestowed upon her and upon the world together with him.
She went and found the child in the manger clothed with swaddling cloth. And the child said When I was born into this world I was bound with these swaddling clothes so that I could not move. Thus, it was a sign that I delivered myself without any reservations into the hands of mankind to be used. As whoever is bound will be powerless and cannot defend himself; everything may be taken from him.
(…)
And she (Menchtild) thought to see God as a mighty king upon a throne of ivory; and he spoke to her soul Come and receive the coeternal and heavenly born son of my heart and share him with whoever adores with thanksgiving his eternal birth out of my person.
She then saw how a light radiated from the heart of God. It clung supply to the soul in the form of a radiant child. She greeted him with the words Welcome, reflection of eternal glory. She then carried the child around to all those present and gave him to each one, but however, she also sheltered him near her own her heart.

Maybe we too can share God with those around us