Will Jesus find room at the inn of your heart?

When listening to the account of Jesus’ birth every year during the Advent and Christmas seasons, we hear how Joseph and Mary were forced to find alternative accommodations.

While practically speaking it meant the Holy Family had to find another place for Jesus to be born, spiritually this simple passage challenges us to make room for Jesus in our heart.

Dom Prosper Gueranger meditates on this spiritual theme in his Liturgical Year.

Now during the season of Advent, our Lord knocks at the door of all men’s hearts, at one time so forcibly that they must needs notice Him, at another so softly that it requires attention to know that Jesus is asking admission. He comes to ask them if they have room for Him, for He wishes to be born in their house. The house indeed is His, for he built it and preserves it, yet He complains that His own refused to receive Him, at least the greater number did.

This is a simple spiritual theme to meditate on during Advent, but it is an important one. Jesus comes to us and wants to bring his peace to our hearts. However, we often reject that peace and prefer our anxiety. We turn the Holy Family away, and force them to find someone else to dwell within.

Gueranger hopes that we would all take heed to the spirit of this season, that Jesus will visit us and find room to be born.

And when our Lord comes they may hope that He will not pass them by, but that He will enter and dwell within them, for He spoke of all when He said these words, “Behold I stand at the gate and knock if any man shall hear My voice and open to Me the door, I will come in unto him.”

Read more:The real reason why there was “no room at the inn”