Thought for the Week

She was such a wee star that she was hardly even noticed in the night sky even though she twinkled as best she could.

The other stars mocked her and said she would never be a shining light.

The other stars made really lovely patterns and had exotic names like The Milky Way, Orion’s Belt and The Great Bear, and sounded so important.

The wee star wanted so much to be part of that.

Then one night there was a lot of excitement in the heavens and the angels were saying that a very important baby was going to be born and that he would be God’s own son.

And strangely he was going to be called a king – yet he was not going to be born in a palace, but in a stable.

When they heard that God wanted a special star to point others to the stable, the other stars laughed and said: ‘Well we’re not going to shine over a manky smelly stable ... we are made for better things.’

So they told God about this and God said: ‘Well, I’m sorry about this, but I need a star to shine over the stable because I came to be with the ordinary people – not the ones who think they are important.’

So God asked the angels to go round the heavens and see if they could find a star who would shine over the stable at Jesus’s birth and point people to him.

And the angels chose the little star because she had God’s light in her.

And as baby Jesus slept safely in his crib, Joseph went out and said to Mary: ‘There is the brightest star I have ever seen in the sky tonight.’

‘I know,’ said Mary, ‘it is Jesus’s star.’