The Burning Babe
As I in hoary winter’s night
Stood shivering in the snow,
Surprised I was with sudden heat
Which made my heart to glow;
And lifting up a fearful eye
To view what fire was near,
A pretty Babe, all burning bright,
Did in the air appear;
Who, scorched with excessive heat,
Such floods of tears did shed,
As though His floods should quench His flames,
Which with His tears were bred.
“Alas!” quoth He, “but newly born,
In fiery heats I fry,
Yet none approach to warm their hearts
Or feel my fire, but I;
“My faultless breast the furnace is;
The fuel, wounding thorns;
Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke;
The ashes, shames and scorns.
“The fuel Justice layeth on,
And Mercy blows the coals,
The metal in this furnace wrought
Are men’s defiled souls.
“For which, as now on fire I am,
To work them to their good,
So will I melt into a bath,
To wash them in My blood.”
With this He vanish’d out of sight
And swiftly shrunk away,
And straight I called unto my mind
That it was Christmas Day.
“The Burning Babe” by St. Robert Southwell
Dear Friends,
Here is another Christmas poem for you. Robert Southwell was an English Jesuit who was executed in 1595 for high treason, because it was treason to be a Catholic under Good Queen Bess.
Robert Southwell is unrelated to the Infant Jesus of Prague except that they date to roughly the same period. Legend claims that the statue was owned and used by St. Teresa of Avila for personal devotions. If that is true, it dates to the mid-late 1500s. Whether or not that is true, I don’t know. Regardless, the statue was donated to the Carmelites of Prague by Princess Polyxena of Lobkowicz. She was a Czech noble with political connections to Spain, so if the statue truly originated in Spain that is how it got to Prague.
So, there is a brief history for you condensed from two Wikipedia articles (Infant Jesus of Prague and Polyxena of Lobkowicz).
Merry Christmas!
DS
