A Month with the Word Made Flesh

December · Devotional · Christ Bearer Press $7.99 Kindle · $11.99 Paperback Buy on Amazon → Also in Spanish: Un mes con el Verbo hecho carne

For centuries the Catholic Church has given December to the Word made flesh: four weeks of Advent waiting, the great Solemnity of the Nativity on December 25, and the first days of the Christmas Octave. A Month with the Word Made Flesh is a thirty-one-day companion for that month: a school of prayer for the mystery of the Incarnation, rooted in Scripture, in the Fathers and the saints, and in the feasts that crowd the Church's calendar from the First Sunday of Advent to the last night of the year.

Each daily entry takes ten to fifteen minutes and follows the same simple form:

• A short verse from the Douay-Rheims Bible
• A reflection that brings the day's feast, saint or antiphon into your own week
• A passage from the Fathers and the saints: St. Irenaeus, St. Cyprian, St. Athanasius, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Ambrose, St. John Chrysostom, St. Augustine, St. Leo the Great, St. John Damascene, St. Bernard, St. Francis Xavier, St. John of the Cross, the eyewitness of St. Thomas Becket's martyrdom, and the popes from Pius IX to Francis
• Three questions, each with a small next step
• One concrete thing to do before bed, often written down in the book itself
• A closing prayer in plain, present-day English

The questions are gentle and safe to answer honestly, and the actions are small and real: lighting the first candle of the Advent wreath at supper, setting a candle in the window for St. Lucy, writing the seven names of the O Antiphons on a card for the table, letting the youngest lay the Child in the manger on Christmas Eve, marking each child's height on a doorframe on the feast of the Holy Family.

The days go in order. The first week walks the opening of Advent: the season itself, the Word made flesh, St. Francis Xavier, St. John Damascene, the prophet Isaiah, St. Nicholas and St. Ambrose. The second week walks mid-Advent with Our Lady and her saints: the Immaculate Conception, St. Juan Diego, Our Lady of Loreto, the Visitation, Our Lady of Guadalupe, St. Lucy and St. John of the Cross. The third goes deeper: the Annunciation, Gaudete Sunday, and the seven O Antiphons from December 17 to 23, each calling the coming Christ by an ancient name. The fourth walks the Nativity itself: Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, then St. Stephen, St. John and the Holy Innocents. The closing days bring St. Thomas Becket, the Holy Family and St. Sylvester on December 31.

The longer prayers the book asks for is printed in full at the back, among the Prayers for the Season: the Angelus, the Magnificat, the Benedictus, the Te Deum for the last night of the year, and the Litany of Loreto, so that nobody has to go looking.

The book opens with ten Tips for Prayer drawn from the practice of the saints and a plain How to Use This Devotional guide, so it serves lifelong Catholics and those returning or coming new to prayer equally well.

Who it is for

• Personal daily prayer through Advent and the Christmas Octave
• Families gathered at the Advent wreath with children old enough to listen
• Parish prayer groups and Advent evenings of recollection
• Religious communities and lay associations
• Anyone who wants a quieter, deeper December

"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." (John 1:14)

December is the busiest month of the year for most families. This book will not add to the noise. It asks ten or fifteen minutes a day and gives back a season kept the way the Church keeps it: slowly, with expectation, and then with joy.

Spend this December with the prophets, with St. Joseph and the Blessed Virgin Mary, and with the whole Church, waiting for the One who comes, and then kneel at the manger with them.

Verbum caro factum est. And the Word was made flesh.

Book details

Publisher: Christ Bearer Press · Paperback: 126 pages · ISBN 979-8-1920-1839-2 · Language: English (Spanish edition available) · Scripture: Douay-Rheims

Part of The 12-Month Catholic Devotional. See all our books →