Detail: Georges de La Tour, Adoration of the Shepherds (c. 1644)
Joyful Mystery 3 of 5.
Scripture
And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.
Luke 2:1–20
Meditation
The Son of God is born not in a palace but in a borrowed stable, and his first crib is a feeding trough. His first visitors are shepherds, the people whose work made them ritually unclean and socially overlooked. The mystery is not only that God became one of us; it is that he chose where to begin. Whatever poverty you carry, Christ has been there first.
Fruit of the mystery
Poverty of spirit