St. Ephrem the Syrian
Lord, give us leave this day to celebrate thy true birthday, of which the present festival puts us in mind. This day is like thyself: it is the friend of man. Year by year it returns throughout the centuries, growing old with the aged, renewing itself with the new-born child. Year by year it comes to us, passes, and then returns, full of the old magic. It knows that human nature cannot do without it; like thyself, it comes to the rescue of our imperiled race. The whole round earth is thirsting for thy birthday, Lord. In that one happy day are contained all the ages to come; it is one, yet it multiplies itself to infinity. May it then resemble thee again this year, and make peace between heaven and earth.
All days bear the imprint of thy goodness, but today thy goodness brims over. The other days of the year borrow their loveliness from this one; the coming festivals owe to it all their dignity and luster. Thy birthday, Lord, is a treasure great enough to repay the common debt.
Blessed be that day which gave back the light of the sun to us who were astray in the dark, which brought us the sheaf of divine plenty and gave us that vine from which the wine of salvation would be pressed. In the depth of winter, when the trees were stripped of fruit, the vine clothed itself with heavenly foliage; in that icy season a branch sprang from the tree of Jesse. In that month of December which holds deep down in the earth the seed that was entrusted to it, the bud of salvation unfolded itself from the Virgin's womb, where it was planted in the spring days when the lambs were skipping in their pastures.
TO GOD THE FATHER
Today the true sun is risen on the world, today a light has come forth in the midst of the darkened earth: God has become man, so I that man may become God in his turn; the Master takes upon himself the form of a slave, so that the slave may be converted to his Master. He who founded and dwells in the heavens has made his abode on earth, so that man, the earth-bound, may find a new home in heaven.
O day more brilliant than any sun! season for which all ages have longed! That which the angels were awaiting, that which the cherubim and seraphim and the ministering choirs of heaven knew not, has been revealed in our time. That which they viewed as a reflection in a mirror, we see face to face. He who spoke to the people of Israel through Isaias, Jeremias, and the other prophets, now speaks to us through his Son.
By thy favor, Lord, let the holy angel bring tidings of great joy to Christian people all over the world. Today in David's city Christ the Lord is born, the salvation of all, the eternal Savior; and in that city, which is the Church, he will reign for ever, guarding and guiding her until the end of time. Grant that his reign over her may be whole and entire, extending throughout the world, and causing her to partake of that eternity which belongs to the citizens of heaven.
Merciful and loving God, whose will and gift it was that our Lord Jesus Christ humbled himself to this end that he might raise up the whole race of men, stooping low to exalt the lowly, a God born of a Virgin to restore in man the lost image of heaven: grant that this people of thine may cleave to thee, and that those whom thou hast freely redeemed may ever give thee zealous and acceptable service.
Merciful God, prepare the minds of the faithful, and subdue unbelieving hearts, to welcome the surpassing mystery of thy Son's human birth.
TO THE INCARNATE WORD
This is the day on which the Savior of the earth, the Light of the world, shone forth. On this day the Savior of Israel came down from the pinnacle of heaven to set free all those whom the ancient enemy held captive by reason of Adam's fault; he came down so that blind souls might have light and deaf souls might hear. The mountains and hills leap for joy, the very foundations of the world break into song, thrilled by the great mystery of his incarnation and all the good it has brought.
For our part, let us humbly entreat our Redeemer to show us his love and mercy. May our souls, begrimed by sin, be cleansed by heartfelt contrition, so that his light may shine gloriously in and about us, and the bliss of salvation be ours to enjoy for ever.
For our sake a child is born, to our race a Son is given. Thou who art thy Father's full-grown Son hast become thy mother's baby; in heaven, infinite: here, tiny; abiding in thy Father's bosom, yet carried in thy mother's womb; changeless in Godhead, peerless in thy humanity, because for ever one and the same in both; in thy divine nature our Creator, and in thy human our Redeemer.
Alpha and Omega, Beginning and End, God and Man; as God, infinite, yet from the beginning destined to become man; God before time was, Man in process of time; all-embracing, all-transcending; from whom all beings have life; thou who wast born for our sake, have mercy upon us.
Abiding still within thy own Godhead, thou showest thyself in our midst; self-centered, thou comest to our help; not lacking power from the Father to pass judgment upon us wretches, thou comest in mercy to save us; while filling the heavens, thou dost not abandon the earth. Without abating thy infinite majesty as Creator, complete in us, we pray thee, the work of a most kind Redeemer; and let that pity which led thee to pay our ransom move thee also to pardon our misdeeds.
We have had sight of thy glory, Lord, glory such as belongs to the Father's only-begotten Son: sole-born in Godhead, first-born in earthly rank; in heaven the only Son of the Father, here on earth the chief among thy brethren; there one with the Father, here the first among thy fellows; there abiding in the Father's bosom, his equal, here never deserting thy companions; there creating, here renewing. Give us grace to become partners of thy kingdom, since for us thou madest reparation on earth. Thou who camest into this world to redeem us, be our reward in the world to come.
God, who in putting on humanity didst of thy own accord become our partner in weakness; make us thy partners in the glory of thy heavenly kingdom.
Thou hast risen upon us, Jesus Christ, true Sun of Justice. Thou hast come down from heaven, Redeemer of mankind, and built for us a rampart of salvation. Thou, the everlasting Son of the Most High, born as man from the stock of David, as ancient prophecies foretold, hast been pleased to forgive thy people, and blotting out the record of our primal sin, hast opened a triumphal way to eternal life.
New therefore, we pray thee, let us behold the depths of thy mercy. Eternal Savior, rescue us from the devilish foe, make us zealous in holy living, keep us from straying into peril of death, and lead us, by the straight path of thy service, which is peace, 0 Savior of the world, who art God, living and reigning, and ruling with God the Father and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen.
The Incarnation and Human Dignity
St. Peter Chrysologus
A virgin conceived, bore a son, and yet remained a virgin. This is no common occurrence, but a sign; no reason here, but God’s power, for he is the cause, and not nature. It is a special event, not shared by others; it is divine, not human. Christ’s birth was not necessity, but an expression of omnipotence, a sacrament of piety for the redemption of men. He who made man without generation from pure clay made man again and was born from a pure body. The hand that assumed clay to make our flesh deigned to assume a body for our salvation. That the Creator is in his creature and God is in the flesh brings dignity to man without dishonor to him who made him.
Why then, man, are you so worthless in your own eyes and yet so precious to God? Why render yourself such dishonor when you are honored by him? Why do you ask how you were created and do not seek to know why you were made? Was not this entire visible universe made for your dwelling? It was for you that the light dispelled the overshadowing gloom; for your sake was the night regulated and the day measured, and for you were the heavens embellished with the varying brilliance of the sun, the moon and the stars. The earth was adorned with flowers, groves and fruit; and the constant marvellous variety of lovely living things was created in the air, the fields, and the seas for you, lest sad solitude destroy the joy of God’s new creation. And the Creator still works to devise things that can add to your glory. He has made you in his image that you might in your person make the invisible Creator present on earth; he has made you his legate, so that the vast empire of the world might have the Lord’s representative. Then in his mercy God assumed what he made in you; he wanted now to be truly manifest in man, just as he had wished to be revealed in man as in an image. Now he would be in reality what he had submitted to be in symbol.
And so Christ is born that by his birth he might restore our nature. He became a child, was fed, and grew that he might inaugurate the one perfect age to remain for ever as he had created it. He supports man that man might no longer fall. And the creature he had formed of earth he now makes heavenly; and what he had endowed with a human soul he now vivifies to become a heavenly spirit. In this way he fully raised man to God, and left in him neither sin, nor death, nor travail, nor pain, nor anything earthly, with the grace of our Lord Christ Jesus, who lives and reigns with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, now and for ever, for all the ages of eternity. Amen.
Why then, man, are you so worthless in your own eyes and yet so precious to God? Why render yourself such dishonor when you are honored by him? Why do you ask how you were created and do not seek to know why you were made? Was not this entire visible universe made for your dwelling? It was for you that the light dispelled the overshadowing gloom; for your sake was the night regulated and the day measured, and for you were the heavens embellished with the varying brilliance of the sun, the moon and the stars. The earth was adorned with flowers, groves and fruit; and the constant marvellous variety of lovely living things was created in the air, the fields, and the seas for you, lest sad solitude destroy the joy of God’s new creation. And the Creator still works to devise things that can add to your glory. He has made you in his image that you might in your person make the invisible Creator present on earth; he has made you his legate, so that the vast empire of the world might have the Lord’s representative. Then in his mercy God assumed what he made in you; he wanted now to be truly manifest in man, just as he had wished to be revealed in man as in an image. Now he would be in reality what he had submitted to be in symbol.
And so Christ is born that by his birth he might restore our nature. He became a child, was fed, and grew that he might inaugurate the one perfect age to remain for ever as he had created it. He supports man that man might no longer fall. And the creature he had formed of earth he now makes heavenly; and what he had endowed with a human soul he now vivifies to become a heavenly spirit. In this way he fully raised man to God, and left in him neither sin, nor death, nor travail, nor pain, nor anything earthly, with the grace of our Lord Christ Jesus, who lives and reigns with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, now and for ever, for all the ages of eternity. Amen.
Christmas is the Birthday of Peace
St. Leo the Great
Although the state of infancy, which the majesty of the Son of God did not disdain to assume, developed with the passage of time into the maturity of manhood, and although after the triumph of the passion and the resurrection all his lowly acts undertaken on our behalf belong to the past, nevertheless today’s feast of Christmas renews for us the sacred beginning of Jesus’s life, his birth from the Virgin Mary. In the very act in which we are reverencing the birth of our Savior, we are also celebrating our own new birth. For the birth of Christ is the origin of the Christian people; and the birthday of the head is also the birthday of the body.
Though each and every individual occupies a definite place in this body to which he has been called, and though all the progeny of the church is differentiated and marked with the passage of time, nevertheless as the whole community of the faithful, once begotten in the baptismal font, was crucified with Christ in the passion, raised up with him in the resurrection and at the ascension placed at the right hand of the Father, so too it is born with him in this Nativity, which we are celebrating today.
For every believer regenerated in Christ, no matter in what part of the whole world he may be, breaks with that ancient way of life that derives from original sin, and by rebirth is transformed into a new man. Henceforth he is reckoned to be of the stock, not of his earthly father, but of Christ, who became Son of Man precisely that men could become sons of God; for unless in humility he had come down to us, none of us by our own merits could ever go up to him.
Therefore the greatness of the gift which he has bestowed o us demands an appreciation proportioned to its excellence; for blessed Paul the Apostle truly teaches: We have received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. The only way that he can be worthily honored by us is by the presentation to him of that which he has already given to us.
But what can we find in the treasure of the Lord’s bounty more in keeping with the glory of this feast than that peace which was first announced by the angelic choir on the day of his birth? For that peace, from which the sons of God spring, sustains love and mothers unity; it refreshes the blessed and shelters eternity; its characteristic function and special blessing is to join to God those whom it separates from this world.
Therefore, may those who were born, not of blood nor of the will fo the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God, offer to the Father their harmony as sons united in peace; and may all those whom he has adopted as his members meet in the firstborn of the new creation who came not to do him own will but the will of the one who sent him; for the grace of the Father has adopted as heirs neither the contentious nor the dissident, but those who are one in thought and love. The hearts and minds of those who have been reformed according to one and the same image should be in harmony with one another.
The birthday of the Lord is the birthday of peace, as Paul the Apostle says: For he is our peace, who has made us both one; for whether we be Jew or Gentile, through him we have access in one Spirit to the Father.
Therefore the greatness of the gift which he has bestowed o us demands an appreciation proportioned to its excellence; for blessed Paul the Apostle truly teaches: We have received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. The only way that he can be worthily honored by us is by the presentation to him of that which he has already given to us.
But what can we find in the treasure of the Lord’s bounty more in keeping with the glory of this feast than that peace which was first announced by the angelic choir on the day of his birth? For that peace, from which the sons of God spring, sustains love and mothers unity; it refreshes the blessed and shelters eternity; its characteristic function and special blessing is to join to God those whom it separates from this world.
Therefore, may those who were born, not of blood nor of the will fo the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God, offer to the Father their harmony as sons united in peace; and may all those whom he has adopted as his members meet in the firstborn of the new creation who came not to do him own will but the will of the one who sent him; for the grace of the Father has adopted as heirs neither the contentious nor the dissident, but those who are one in thought and love. The hearts and minds of those who have been reformed according to one and the same image should be in harmony with one another.
The birthday of the Lord is the birthday of peace, as Paul the Apostle says: For he is our peace, who has made us both one; for whether we be Jew or Gentile, through him we have access in one Spirit to the Father.
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