A work by Pope St. Leo the Great
On the Feast of the Nativity, I.
I.
All share in the joy of Christmas
Our Savior dearly-beloved, was born today: let us be glad. For there is
no proper place for sadness, when we keep the birthday of the Life,
which destroys the fear of mortality and brings to us the joy of
promised eternity. No one is kept from sharing in this happiness.
There is for all one common measure of joy, because as our Lord the
destroyer of sin and death finds none free from charge, so is He come
to free us all. Let the saint exult in that he draws near to victory.
Let the sinner be glad in that he is invited to pardon. Let the
gentile take courage in that he is called to life. For the Son of God
in the fullness of time which the inscrutable depth of the Divine
counsel has determined, has taken on him the nature of man, thereby
to reconcile it to its Author: in order that the inventor of death,
the devil, might be conquered through that (nature) which he had
conquered.
And in this conflict undertaken for us, the fight was
fought on great and wondrous principles of fairness; for the Almighty
Lord enters the lists with His savage foe not in His own majesty but
in our humility, opposing him with the same form and the same nature,
which shares indeed our mortality, though it is free from all sin.
Truly foreign to this nativity is that which we read of all others,
no one is clean from stain, not even the infant who has lived but one
day upon earth Job 19:4 . Nothing therefore of the lust of the flesh
has passed into that peerless nativity, nothing of the law of sin has
entered. A royal Virgin of the stem of David is chosen, to be
impregnated with the sacred seed and to conceive the Divinely-human
offspring in mind first and then in body. And lest in ignorance of
the heavenly counsel she should tremble at so strange a result , she
learns from converse with the angel that what is to be wrought in her
is of the Holy Ghost. Nor does she believe it loss of honour that she
is soon to be the Mother of God. For why should she be in despair
over the novelty of such conception, to whom the power of the most
High has promised to effect it. Her implicit faith is confirmed also
by the attestation of a precursory miracle, and Elizabeth receives
unexpected fertility: in order that there might be no doubt that He
who had given conception to the barren, would give it even to a
virgin.
II.
The mystery of the Incarnation is a fitting theme for joy both to
angels and to men
Therefore
the Word of God, Himself God, the Son of God who in the beginning was
with God, through whom all things were made and without whom was
nothing made John 1:1-3, with the purpose of delivering man from
eternal death, became man: so bending Himself to take on Him our
humility without decrease in His own majesty, that remaining what He
was and assuming what He was not, He might unite the true form of a
slave to that form in which He is equal to God the Father, and join
both natures together by such a compact that the lower should not be
swallowed up in its exaltation nor the higher impaired by its new
associate. Without detriment therefore to the properties of either
substance which then came together in one person, majesty took on
humility, strength weakness, eternity mortality: and for the paying
off of the debt, belonging to our condition, inviolable nature was
united with possible nature, and true God and true man were combined
to form one Lord, so that, as suited the needs of our case, one and
the same Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, could
both die with the one and rise again with the other.
Rightly
therefore did the birth of our Salvation impart no corruption to the
Virgin's purity, because the bearing of the Truth was the keeping of
honour. Such then beloved was the nativity which became the Power of
God and the Wisdom of God even Christ, whereby He might be one with
us in manhood and surpass us in Godhead. For unless He were true God,
He would not bring us a remedy, unless He were true Man, He would not
give us an example. Therefore the exulting angel's song when the Lord
was born is this, Glory to God in the Highest, and their message,
peace on earth to men of good will Luke 2:14 . For they see that the
heavenly Jerusalem is being built up out of all the nations of the
world: and over that indescribable work of the Divine love how ought
the humbleness of men to rejoice, when the joy of the lofty angels is
so great?
III.
Christians then must live worthily of Christ their Head
Let
us then, dearly beloved, give thanks to God the Father, through His
Son, in the Holy Spirit , Who for His great mercy, wherewith He has
loved us, has had pity on us: and when we were dead in sins, has
quickened us together in Christ Ephesians 2:4-5, that we might be in
Him a new creation and a new production. Let us put off then the old
man with his deeds: and having obtained a share in the birth of
Christ let us renounce the works of the flesh. Christian, acknowledge
your dignity, and becoming a partner in the Divine nature, refuse to
return to the old baseness by degenerate conduct. Remember the Head
and the Body of which you are a member. Recollect that you were
rescued from the power of darkness and brought out into God's light
and kingdom. By the mystery of Baptism you were made the temple of
the Holy Ghost: do not put such a denizen to flight from you by base
acts, and subject yourself once more to the devil's thraldom: because
your purchase money is the blood of Christ, because He shall judge
you in truth Who ransomed you in mercy, who with the Father and the
Holy Spirit reigns for ever and ever. Amen.
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