Consideration for the 9th day
Night has completely fallen across the fields of Bethlehem. Outcast by men and finding themselves without shelter, Mary and Joseph have left the inhospitable populace and have sought refuge in a grotto found at the foot of the hill. The Queen of Angels was followed by the beast of burden that had been her mount during the journey, and in that cave, they found a tame ox, left there probably by one of the travelers who had gone to find room in the city. The Divine Child, unknown by his rational creatures, will need to have recourse to his irrational creatures so that they warm with their breath the atmosphere on that winter night, and manifest to him with their humble attitude the respect and the adoration that had been denied Him in Bethlehem.
The reddish lantern that Joseph holds in his hand tenuously illuminates the poor enclosure; that manger filled with hay, that is a prophetic figure of the altar and of the intimate Eucharistic union of Jesus amid that grotto.
That is how those hours pass silently during that night full of mystery.
But midnight has arrived. Suddenly we see in that manger, empty just a few moments before, the Divine Child: awaited, foretold, and desired for four thousand years!