preparing the heart to receive the Word made flesh, and love in return for the love that brought Him down
Christmas Novena (Saint Alphonsus Liguori)
The nine days before Christmas kept with the nine meditations and prayers St. Alphonsus Liguori wrote for the Nativity. Each day sets one aspect of the Incarnation before the mind — that God became man, that He became an infant, that He was born poor, humiliated, sorrowful — and closes with the saint's own affection and prayer. A devotional novena for private and family use, not a liturgical rite.