GOD has always loved, and always will love 'nothing'. Why? And what exactly do I mean by 'nothing'. So that you do not get me wrong, I shall explain myself at once:
Did you ever wonder why God chose to be born in a stable among animals? -Why he chose a young, poor, inexperienced girl to be His mother? - A peasant carpenter for His adopted father? -Why he announced his birth to poor shepherds, and pagan, foreign kings, both of which were considered nobody to the Jewish world into which our God was born? -Why he chose to be born in the smallest, most over-looked town? -And, lastly, why He has always made saints only out of the most humble souls? -In short, why He always seeks for and clings to 'nothing'?
-Because He is 'Everything'. Where can Everything find room for Itself but in nothing? Everything cannot fit where something already exists, and God ever longs to fill everything He can find.
There is no room in the inn, we are told. -Why? because it is not 'nothing'. Only a cold, smelly stable is completely 'nothing', and thus sufficiently roomy enough to take in Everything.
Just the same, God does not take part of us: He will settle for no less than 'nothing'. (-Or no more you might say!) -Many say He is hard to please, -that He is jealous: for He wants all of us, not some. And He was born into a stable to prove this point! He can only make saints out of those who become nothing that they might be filled- not by something or anything, but Everything.
It is commonly known that God loves humility and littleness. In the Scriptures He loves the children, and He is always exhorting us to be humble, to be the least. But have you ever wondered why it's so important, and why He talks of it so very often? He says to us: "He who humbles himself shall be exalted, but he who exalts himself shall be humbled."
-We gave us an example of this by His birth. He shunned the inn; the picture of comfort and quality, what everyone would have held up as the most honorable lodgings; and by being turned from there, he has forever left an insufficient sort of view on the place. -Not to say that we all go around shunning hotels and inns: but don't we all think with abhorrence of the place that turned God away? He did not bless the place of comfort by His holy presence, and by arresting His presence from such a place, it was brought down.
In the same way, he has forever hallowed the very words 'stable', and 'manger', which seem to us, at first thought, the farthest things from the presence of God. -And yet don't we know think of them with love and respect, and call them holy for having held Him, 'whom heaven and earth do not contain'?
Verily.
Yes, only when we become like the stable and empty ourselves until we become nothing can the King of heaven and earth- 'Everything'- enter within us.
All the saints- St. Therese in particular- exhorted and raised up humility: nothingness.
And yet, though we have heard it from the holy, and from our Lord Himself, we can easily miss the reason and seriousness,- the importance of having this nothingness, and simply ask 'why?'
-And that is why, lest we forget or miss this point, that our Lord gives us this season of Christmas: that we might dwell on His coming as Everything into nothing;- that we might learn from His example, and follow it: keeping ourselves humbled that we might be exalted- nothing, that we might share in the fullness of Everything.
~Come! Let us adore Him!