Dialogue at the crib

December 1, 2001

Dear Friends and Benefactors,

As Advent comes again, leading to Christmas, it is easy to imagine an anxious father and mother praying by the side of a crib with the Christ-Child. Many worries run through their minds. Since this child is God, even as a baby He can reply within their minds, so His replies can be imagined as well...

Child Jesus: - Dear father, dear mother, you need not be so anxious. Here I am, a defenceless little baby with only two animals and a mother and a foster-father around me, and yet this sheep-stall is a corner of Heaven.

Parents: - Yes, Lord, but you were God, so of course the help of God was with you, and any number of angels as well. We are just ordinary people, almost lost in a wicked world.

Child Jesus: - But why are you here to pray? If you pray, do you not have God with, you? And if you pray to the angels, do you not have them with you? You may not be able to see them, but your Faith tells you that they are there. Tell me one thing: have you abandoned Me?

Parents: - Oh no, Lord!

Child Jesus: - Then how do you think I could abandon you? And if I am with you by your staying with me, do you think you are that much more defenceless than I was? When the two of you were babies, did either of you have a Herod coming after you to murder you like I did? You remember how Joseph and Mary had to pick me up in the middle of the night, and we had to flee to Egypt. This crib may be a corner of Heaven, but it is not free of tribulations!

Parents: - Lord, why do you let your friends have so many tribulations? Why do you let it be so hard for us to be Catholics? Why don't you make the whole world Catholic?

Child Jesus: - Did the two of you come here to pray of your own free will? Of course you did. But what would your prayer be worth if as God I had used some kind of force to bring you here? All of you human beings were created through me, and I know and love every single one of you, but I did not love you in order to force your love for me. As a baby, I may tug at the heartstrings of men, but I still do not force them.

Parents: - Yes, Lord, but still, why do there seem to be so many extra tribulations for us Catholics?

Child Jesus: - There are tribulations, open or hidden, for all of you, and every one of them goes back to sin. Guilty souls must suffer tribulations for their own sins, but the weight of sin in the world is such that less guilty souls also need to suffer. I was for the whole of my life on earth as innocent as the baby you now see in the crib, yet I took all the weight of all sins on me, to redeem you. I did it gladly. Would you like to help me?

Parents: - Oh Lord, we are poor creatures. We will help as best as we can. But our children! We have managed to keep the Faith, but do you know the massive difficulties for youngsters today if they are not to lose hold of you?

Child Jesus: - I know in every single detail every snare and trap being laid for their feet, every ambush being prepared for their souls. How I can be choosing to allow this corruption so to surround and close in on young souls is a mystery which you may not be able to understand now. You must trust me that I allow no evil out of which I will not draw a greater good. As for the criminals responsible for this corruption, you must not hate them. Only I can judge them. Leave them to me. If they refuse all my appeals from the crib to promote the holiness of families like you see here, then better if a millstone were hung around their necks and they were cast into the sea, but that is not your problem -vengeance is mine, and I will repay. Pray for them, to prevent the Devil slipping bitterness and poison into your own souls. Trust me, and pray.

Parents: - Lord, what else can we do to protect our children?

Child Jesus: - Look after their souls as well as you look after their bodies. Neglect neither what is supernatural nor what is natural in their formation. Enlighten their minds by instruction, strengthen their wills by discipline. Teach them self-sacrifice from a young age. Above all, give good example. And use in the home as relatively few machines as possible. In many ways electric machines in particular can replace the real world with a virtual world which can give only a virtual formation. Ban television absolutely, and if to earn your living the Internet must be in the house, keep it strictly under lock and key, with the only key always in father's pocket. Did Joseph or Mary need one single machine for my own human formation? Yet was my formation lacking in anything from the crib onwards? Children to become human need human care and human guidance which come best from their very own father and mother, and which can come from no machine.

Parents: - But, Lord, we have growing and grown children, sinking and sunk in sin!

Child Jesus: - Father, make the right use of any degree of control still remaining to you. To that degree you are still responsible, and you cannot do less. Mother, trust me to listen to the prayers of a mother. Imagine how I loved the Mother whom you see cradling me in her arms. Imagine the power of her least wish over my divine Heart. Go through her, and be ready for your children to break your heart, as my Mother from this crib onwards foresaw and accepted for her heart to be broken when I would be crucified. Someone must pay. Often that someone is mother. That is her glory, and will be her crown.

Father: - I will do my best for my family, but the economic situation does not look good. I fear losing my job.

Child Jesus: - Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof, but if you are afraid, start trusting St. Joseph now. The outlook for the three of us in front of you was soon to be grim, as we fled for my life to Egypt, but did God let us lack for anything we truly needed? I allow many an economic recession or depression in order to separate souls from too much prosperity and comfort when these get in the way of their eternal salvation. Countless souls are now plunged in a materialism which does not really make them happy. Rejoice if a return to sheep-stalls will put a number of souls back on the path to true happiness.

Parents: - We are being threatened also with a third World War.

Child Jesus: - My peace I give you, not peace as the world gives, but my peace I give you. Let not your hearts be troubled, nor let them be afraid. As long as there is sin in the world, there are going to be wars. Men today have let loose a deluge of sin, which you must trust in my wisdom for having permitted. True, my justice will have to punish at the moment I will know to be best, but trust me still that that punishment will be an act of divine mercy towards souls. And if you yourselves are in the grace of God, at peace with God, what does it matter who else makes war on you? With the three of us here is true peace. Concentrate on staying in my grace.

Parents: - Lord of Lords, that is all we wish to do, but what a state your Catholic Church is in! May grace not be cut off?

Child Jesus: - In all these recent years, have you ever wanted to reach me through true sacraments with a true priest, and been unable to do so, at least at intervals?

Parents: - No, come to think of it, you were there when we looked for you.

Child Jesus: - And if you meet other souls looking for me, what do you do?

Parents: - We tell them where to find you, in the crib of Tradition.

Child Jesus: - Then if you see that I did not lose you in the past, why should I lose you in the future?

Parents: - But what about a mass of souls in the mainstream Church, only half-looking for you?

Child Jesus: - They half-find me. They may have half-abandoned me, but I have not abandoned them. They find me as much as they want to find me, and that is true also for the leaders of my Church.

Parents: - But, Lord, how can they possibly still be true leaders of your Church as they lead so many souls astray?

Child Jesus: - Leave judgment to me, who alone have all the elements on which to judge. Be thankful for the good around you. Avoid the evil. Tell good and evil apart by the fruits. Pray for all gone astray, especially for the leaders. And pray for yourselves, that you never lose your present sense of where to find the Truth. Here is indeed the Incarnate Word of God, hidden beneath the appearance of a mere human baby. And trust me. I have overcome the world, and I am with you all days, until the world comes to an end.



Dear Friends, contact de Di Ceccos at (203) 261-1133 for details of a two-week pilgrimage in July next year to visit shrines of Eucharistic Miracles in Italy. And BEWARE OF A CHANGE OF SCHEDULE FOR JULY AT THE SEMINARY HERE. Destroy the last Retreats flyer, now inaccurate. Here is the new schedule: -

- Monday July 1 , 5 pm, to Saturday July 6, 4 pm, Men's 5-day Retreat.

- Monday July 8, 5 pm, to Saturday July 13, 4 pm, Men's 5-day Retreat.

- Monday July 15, 9 am, to Friday July 26, 12 pm, Men's Literature Session with Dr. David White (Chaucer, Midsummer Night's Dream, Dickens, Emily Dickinson, Eugene O'Neill).

- Tuesday July 30, 5 pm, to Saturday August 3, 4 pm, (no change) Doctrinal Session for men on Papal Encyclicals.

I apologize for these changes. Of course registration fees for retreats cancelled will be re-imbursed. Ladies, I am sorry we will offer no retreats for you this year, but send your menfolk instead. They are the ones who most need it!

And many blessings upon all of you for Advent and for Christmas.



Sincerely yours in Christ,