By Luis G. Dato
At Christmas time the nights are dark and chill,
But over all the world resplendent sill
The Star of Bethlehem we all can see,
Rejoicing in the Lord’s Nativity.
All to the Church will gather swain and lass
To lift the heart of youth to God at mass,
The choir in songs and angels sang to hark
At yuletide in nights so chill and dark.
With Christmas cheer we see in Jesus’ life,
The saintly Joseph and his Virgin wife
The figures holy of our loves of earth,
And man and God all intertwined at birth.
And God we see in man, and man in Him
Through the dark mirror of our senses dim,
And the pure heart reach farther than the mind,
Perceiving what thought stumbling cannot find.
In reason’s light, in blindness would we tread
The earth and search for God in vain o’erhead,
For He has been these many years the while
With us, life, heaven, not a dark exile.
Not Reason’s eyes· but instinct’s all these years
On Christmas Day see through our darkly fears,
Behold.with happiness ourselves reborn
In Bethlehem, in Jesus that bright morn.
O Lord of hosts, this Christmas and New Year
Do bring to every home the Season’s cheer,
Bid thou the nations from all war to cease,
And give Thy gift of universal peace.
