"Each of Us is Bethlehem"

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Simon de Chalons (1506-1568)
Adoration des bergers (1548)

Il n'est maintenance difficile à  trouver, car l'on a veu son estoille en Orient, qui tire chascun à le servir et adorer. Assez y a qui savent bien qu'il est né en Bethleen (qui est maison de pain et de réfection) et l'enseignent à ceux qui le demandent, mais n'y vont portant l'adorer. Chascun de nous est Bethleen, car par foy est en nos coeurs le doux Jhesus, qui nous repaist sans desfaillance: "Dominus pascit me et nihil midi deherit, etc." Car il nous a mis en plaine pasture de grace exuberante, de laquelle nul est excluz.

"He is now not difficult to find, for we have seen his star in the East, which draws each one of us to serve and adore him. There are plenty who know well that he was born in Bethlehem (that house of bread and renewal) and teach it to those who ask, yet never go there to worship him. Each of us is Bethlehem, for in our hearts, through faith, is sweet Jesus, who feeds us our fill without fail: "The Lord shepherds me; there is nothing I lack, etc." For he has put us in an open field of exuberant grace, from which no one is excluded."

Guillaume Briçonnet (1472-1534)

Bishop of Meaux, spiritual advisor to Marguerite de Navarre

Letter to Marguerite de Navarre

26 September 1524

May you have a happy and blessed day!