“May I put a piece of hay in the manger?” Since our children were young, it’s a question often heard in our household this time of year.
In our nativity set at the start of Advent, Jesus’ manger is empty. All through Advent, the children can place in the manger a piece of hay each time they do something kind for someone else, take on extra chores, donate items to the poor, or spend extra time doing spiritual reading, for example.
The goal is to make the manger a soft, cozy place for the baby Jesus to lay his head on Christmas morning.
This tradition is a tangible way for children to begin to understand what it means to prepare our hearts for the coming of the Christ child.
Even now, as our children are getting older, the tradition lingers.
“Mom,” my daughter reported to me with a hug the other day, “I was trying hard to practice self-control when (my brother) was really annoying me.”
“Yes, I noticed that!” her brother piped up from downstairs. We all laughed.
“I’m really proud of you, and I know that wasn’t easy for you,” I said to her. “Why don’t you put two pieces of hay in the manger?”
My daughter’s eyes lit up and she bounced to the nativity set to place the pieces of hay.
Acts of sacrifice
For children as well as adults, it’s these little acts of self-sacrifice, of striving toward virtue, that help prepare our hearts during Advent.
What is Jesus gently calling you to this Advent? How can you best prepare your own heart to receive the King of Kings who came as an infant 2,000 years ago and who comes to us in the humble form of the Eucharist every day at Mass?
For some of us, perhaps a little sacrifice is spending a designated time each week in Eucharistic Adoration. For others, perhaps it is giving up a particular vice or training oneself to respond differently in certain situations. Others might focus on offering gifts of charity or caring to those in need.
Surrender to Jesus
For me personally, I know Jesus is asking very specifically a part of me that requires my utmost trust in Him: It is a deep-seated fear of things I cannot control.
In my own empty manger of a heart this Advent, I am striving each day to surrender to Him all fear, all worries, all control.
Maybe as an adult, I don’t need visible pieces of hay to symbolize my little sacrifices, but with every painful act of surrender, I am rewarded with a glimpse of Jesus’ peace in my heart instead.
A dear friend of mine recently gave me the Novena of Surrender by Fr. Dolindo Ruotolo. Its refrain is: “O Jesus, I surrender myself to you, take care of everything!”
On Day 2, Jesus says in the prayer: “Surrender to me does not mean to fret, to be upset, or to lose hope, nor does it mean offering to me a worried prayer asking me to follow you and change your worry into prayer. It is against this surrender, deeply against it, to worry, to be nervous, and to desire to think about the consequences of anything.
“Surrender means to placidly close the eyes of the soul, to turn away from thoughts of tribulation and to put yourself in my care, so that only I act, saying, ‘You take care of it.’”
For the prayer in its entirety, visit https://catholicexchange.com/the-surrender-novena-let-jesus-take-care-of-everything
Consider carefully your own pieces of hay this Advent. Use well the days of preparation. And remember what joy awaits you Christmas morning when you — just like a child — can offer to the baby Jesus a cozy place to stay in your heart.
Julianne Nornberg, mother of four children, is a member of St. John the Baptist Parish, Waunakee.