Final Day of the Novena of Aguinaldos...
The Vigil of the Nativity of Our Lord has arrived!
Final day of the Novena of Aguinaldos (aguinaldos means "bonuses" or "benefits").
The Novena of Aguinaldos
Make the sign of the Cross.
Prayer for Every Day
O Most Gracious God of infinite love, You loved humankind so much, You gave us in Your Son the best pledge of Your love, so that Jesus, made human in the womb of a Virgin and born in a manger, would be our health and remedy. I, on behalf of all humanity, give You infinite thanks for such a sovereign benefit. In return for this great gift, I offer You the poverty, simplicity, humility and other virtues of Your Incarnate Son. I implore You by His divine merits, the discomforts He suffered when He was born, and sweet tears He shed in the manger, that You prepare our hearts with profound humility, a burning love and with total disdain of all that is material and earthly, so that the newborn Jesus will find in our hearts His crib and abode forever. Amen.
Pray three Glory Bes
Day 9: December 24
The night closed entirely on the fields of Bethlehem. Rejected by men and seeing themselves without shelter, Mary and Joseph have left the inhospitable town, and have taken refuge in a grotto at the foot of a hill. The Queen of Angels continued riding the donkey that had served her during the trip and in the cave they found a gentle ox. The Divine Child, unknown by His human creatures, will have to turn to the aid of the irrational beasts to heat with their warm breath the icy air of that winter night, and they, in turn, show Him with this humble act, the respect and adoration that Bethlehem had denied Him. It is now midnight, and, suddenly we see within that manger, empty just moments before, the awaited Divine Child, prophesied and longed-for for four thousand years with such ineffable yearnings. At His feet the Blessed Mother is prostrate in such a fashion that no one can imagine. Joseph also approaches Him and pays Him homage; and so then commences his mysterious and imponderable role of foster father of the Redeemer of mankind. The multitude of angels who descend from heaven to contemplate that unparalleled wonder, break out in joy and make the air vibrate in the harmonies of the "Gloria in Excelsis,” the same echo of adoration that takes place around the throne of the Almighty, made audible for an instant to the ears of poor earth. Summoned by the angels, the shepherds of the region rush to worship the "newborn" and present their humble offerings. The mysterious Star of Jacob is already shining in the East, and the splendid caravan of the Magi begin their journey to Bethlehem, which in a few days time will come to lay at the feet of the Divine Child, gold, frankincense and myrrh, which are symbols of love, adoration and mortification. Oh, adorable Child! We who have done this Novena to prepare ourselves for the day of Your Nativity, also wish to offer You our humble adoration; do not reject it: come to our souls, come to our hearts full of love. Enflame in our hearts the devotion to Your Holy Childhood, not only limited at the time of Your Nativity, but always and forever; a devotion that faithfully and zealously propagated will lead us to eternal life, freeing us from sin and sowing in us all Christian virtues. Amen.
Prayer to the Blessed Virgin
O Heavenly Queen, by your great virtues and especially for your humility, you merited God’s favor to choose you for His mother. I beg you to prepare my soul and the souls of all those who at this time are praying this Novena for the spiritual birth of your beloved Son. Oh, sweet Mother! Instill in me something of that profound contemplation and great tenderness you felt while you awaited His coming, so that you make us less unworthy to see Him, love Him, and adore Him for all eternity. Amen.
Pray three Hail Marys
Prayer to Saint Joseph
O great St. Joseph, husband of Mary and foster father of Jesus! I give infinite thanks to God for having chosen you for such a great ministry and for having bestowed upon you all the gifts proportionate to such greatness. I beseech you, for the love you had for the Divine Child, that you embrace my earnest desires to see Him and receive Him sacramentally, while we wait to see Him and enjoy Him in His Divine Essence in heaven. Amen.
Pray one Our Father, one Hail Mary, and one Glory Be
The Memorare to the Child Jesus
Remember, O Sweet Holy Child Jesus, that You have said to Venerable Sister Margaret of the Blessed Sacrament, and to all of Your devotees, these words so full of consolation for our poor, burdened and suffering humanity: “Draw from this Divine Heart. Ask all that you desire through the merits of My Holy Childhood. Nothing will be refused to you." Full of confidence in Thee, O Jesus, Who are Truth itself, we come to make known all our misery to you. Help us to lead a Holy life in order to attain a Blessed Eternity. Grant us through the infinite Merits of Your Incarnation and of Your Childhood, the graces of which we are most in need. No, we shall not be deceived in our hope. We abandon ourselves to Thee, O Omnipotent Child, in virtue of Your Divine Promise, You will favorably receive and deign to grant our prayer. Amen.
Christ is born in Bethlehem, alleluia! The mood of this Feast is summed up by words of the angels to the shepherds in Luke 2:10-14:
And the angel said to them: Fear not; for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, that shall be to all the people: For, this day, is born to you a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord, in the city of David. And this shall be a sign unto you. You shall find the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly army, praising God, and saying: Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace to men of good will.
The long-awaited Messias is born, and His Nativity is filled with Mystery. Did you know that "Bethlehem" means "House of Bread"? Yes, the Bread of Life, the Living Bread from Heaven, was born in a town called "House of Bread" -- and, fortelling His future as the Bread of Life Who feeds His sheep, was laid in a manger -- a trough that holds food for animals. St. Gregory Thaumaturgus (a.k.a. Gregory of Neocaesarea), A.D. 213 - ca. 270, describes the significance of the manger in his Homily on the Annunciation:
In the board from which cattle eat was laid the heavenly Bread, in order that He might provide participation in spiritual sustenance for men who live like the beasts of the earth.
The Feast of the Nativity is a most joyous one that celebrates the incredible reality that the Second Person of the Trinity was born of a Virgin so He could redeem us. "It was He, the Infant of days, that could appease, O Lord, the Ancient of Days," wrote St. Ephraem the Syrian and Doctor of the Church.
And how providential that He was born on the day that the light of the Sun increases -- the very opposite of St. John the Baptist, who was born as the light of the Sun begins to decrease, per his words, "He must increase, but I must decrease." St. Gregory of Nyssa writes of this:
On this the Day which the Lord hath made, darkness decreases, light increases, and Night is driven back again. No, Brethren, it is not by chance, nor by any created will, that this natural change begins on the Day, when He shows Himself in the brightness of His coming, which is the spiritual Life of the world. It is Nature revealing, under this symbol, a secret to them whose eye is quick enough to see it; to them, I mean, who are able to appreciate this circumstance of our Saviour's coming. Nature seems to me to say: Know, O Man, that under the things which I show thee, there lie Mysteries concealed. Hast thou not seen the Night, that had grown so long, suddenly checked? Learn hence, that the black night of sin, which had got to its height by the accumulation of every guilty device, is this day its duration shall be shortened, until at length there shall be naught but Light. Look, I pray thee, on the Sun ; and see how his rays are stronger, and his position higher in the heavens: learn from that, how the other Light, the Light of the Gospel, is now shedding itself over the whole earth.
See this page for some interesting information on the date of Christmas.
Customs
If Advent preparations have been handled well, the house should be clean, work should be done, and things should be fresh and ready for twelve days of rejoicing!
Once the sun goes down on Christmas Eve, a lit candle is placed in front of a window to guide the Holy Family, and the Yule log is lit in the fireplace. Back when homes had great fireplaces, fires were lit on Christmas Eve using logs so huge as to be able to burn for all the days of Christmas. These Yule logs now tend to be much smaller, but the traditions surrounding them remain: the fire on Christmas Eve should be lit using a piece of last year's Yule Log which has been stored under the bed of the mistress of the house, which folk belief says brings good fortune and prevents lightning strikes to the home. In Provence, the Yule log is lit with great ceremony. The Grandfather will pour sweet wine over it three times while saying:
Alègre! Alègre! Alègre! Que nostre Segne nous alègre!
S’un autre an sian pas mai, moun Dieu fugen pas men!
Which means:
Joy! Joy! Joy! May God bring us joy!
And if, in the year to come, we are not more, let us not be less!
Then he and the youngest child carry the log three times around the Christmas table before taking it to the fireplace. Alas, fireplaces are less common than they once were, but if you have no fireplace, a decorated log can be used as a centerpiece, as is done in Italy where the log is known as a "ceppo."
While the Yule log burns, a candle is put in the window. This is an old Irish custom stemming from the Protestant persecutions: the candle signalled to priests that the home was a safe place for Mass to be offered, but when the English asked questions, they were told that it was a symbolic invitation to Joseph and Mary.
The Christ candle -- a large white candle decorated with holly and such -- is lit for Christmas Eve Supper, replacing the Advent wreath. It is re-lit each night until the Epiphany to represent Christ's Light and in order to help guide the Magi to the manger. 1 The greenery of the Advent wreath itself is now decorated and hanged on the front door, remaining there throughout the Christmas season.
Another tradition some Catholics practice is the praying of the Litany of the Infant Jesus during the twelve days of Christmas.
Foods
Christmas Eve (before the Vigil Mass) is a day of fasting and abstinence. The 1983 Code of Canon Law eliminated this fast altogether, but many traditional Catholics still keep the fast, eating seafood (the Italians eat fish -- often seven of them!), noodles, other forms of pasta, etc. for the Christmas Eve Supper.
In any case, on both Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day, special dinners are served, some families beginning their Christmas Eve meals when a child sees the first star of the evening in the Noel sky. The table should be beautiful, with greenery and candles, especially the Christ Candle. Some families set a place setting for those who've died during the year or for those who are otherwise unable to attend, and then set a lit candle on it to burn throughout the meal. An Eastern European tradition is to use a white tablecoth to represent Christ's purity and His swaddling clothes, and to place underneath it a bit of hay to recall where he was born. In Provence, three white table cloths of different sizes are used, with the smallest on top.
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day foods vary from country to country, but Christmas Eve dinners are traditionally meatless, while Christmas Day is the day of unrestricted feasting, when Christmas candies, marzipan, oranges, apples, tangerines, nuts, and the cookies baked during Advent are all laid out. From a German tradition, the nuts are cracked open with a nutcracker (nussknacker) shaped like a soldier. E. T. A. Hoffmann's Christmastime story, "The Mouse King," written in 1816, uses this type of nutcracker as a character, and since Tchaikowsky wrote his famous "The Nutcracker" ballet based on this story, both the nutcracker itself and the ballet have become seasonal favorites.
On Christmas Eve, the Poles have a beautiful custom that recalls the Eucharist: Oplatki ("oplatek" in the singular) -- very thin, crisp, large rectangular breads with the consistency of Communion wafers and impressed with religious designs -- are eaten on Christmas Eve (Wigilia) . They are laid at the center of the table this night, on a bed of straw. Just before supper, the father wishes all a holy Christmas and recalls those who've died during the year and brings to memory Christmas Eve suppers past. He takes an oplatek that's been blessed by a priest, and breaks off a piece to give to his wife. He places it in her mouth with a blessing such as, "May the Lord bless and keep you through this next year." The mother reciprocates and then hands a piece to the person next to her and blesses him. That person does the same to the one next to him, and so on, until all have received and given a piece. If it is more than just the immediate family present, the oldest person present will initiate by offering an Oplatek to another, and the two break off a piece between them, passing the remainder on to the next person. Oplatki are shared with the family's animals, too. So loved is this tradition that Poles will mail small oplatki inside Christmas cards to those who aren't present for Christmas Eve. Remaining pieces of oplatki are given to animals to bless them, too (note: the "L" in the word for this bread is pronounced as a "W")."
In Denmark and Norway, a Christmas Eve requirement is a rice pudding, sometimes served with a raspberry or cherry sauce, and inside of which is a peeled almond. The lucky person who finds the almond wins a marzipan pig!
The after-Midnight Mass time (see below) is known as "le réveillon" (the "awakening") in France and French Canada. Foods from the Christmas Eve Supper are served up, and, depending on the region of France or Canada, crêpes, foie-gras, oysters, etc. are served, always ending with the fanciful, Yule Log-shaped Bûche de Noel cake. In Provence, seven meatless dishes are eaten for supper, and then, after Mass, thirteen desserts appear on the table and remain there for three days.1
https://fisheaters.com/customschristmas2.html