Quote/s of the Day – 25 December – Christmas Day!
“In adoring our Saviour’s birth, it is our origin that we celebrate. Christ’s temporal generation is the source of the Christian people, the birth of His Mystical Body. All of us encounter in this Mystery a new birth in Christ.”
St Pope Leo the Great (400-461) Father & Doctor of the Church
Christmas Day is nothing if not a day of universal joy. Children should rejoice because on this day, God Himself became as one of them; virgins, because a Virgin brought forth and remained unstained, even after giving birth; wives, because one of their number, became the Mother of God; sinners, because their Mediator and Saviour and Healer, has come to redeem them; the just, because their Reward, exceeding great, has been born into the world. In truth, all faithful Christians, should rejoice, that their Creator and Lord, has taken on human flesh and begun His reign over the hearts of men, not only as God but also as the Son of Man among the children of men.
“Never was a whimpering bit of humanity so powerful that, while lying on His bed of straw, He could command the very stars to direct whom He wished to visit Him. Never a child so wise or so rich as this little Infant who was full of grace and incarnate truth. Never anyone so marvellous as to be at once so small and so great, true God and true Man, the Uncreated Word and weak human flesh, mighty King and a lowly slave. Never had any child so emptied Himself of all that He really was, in order to become a tiny, speechless, naked, unknown babe.”
St Peter Canisius (1521-1397) Doctor of the Church
God’s sign is simplicity. God’s sign is the baby. God’s sign is that He makes Himself small for us. This is how He reigns. He does not come with power and outward splendour. He comes as a baby – defenceless and in need of our help. He does not want to overwhelm us with His strength. He takes away our fear of His greatness. He asks for our love – so He makes himself a child. He wants nothing other from us than our love, through which we spontaneously learn to enter into His feelings, His thoughts and His will – we learn to live with Him and to practice with Him, that humility of renunciation, that belongs to the very essence of love. God made Himself small, so that we could understand Him, welcome Him and love Him. The Fathers of the Church, in their Greek translation of the Old Testament, found a passage from the prophet Isaiah that Paul also quotes, in order to show how God’s new ways had already been foretold in the Old Testament. There we read: “God made his Word short, he abbreviated it” (Is 10:23; Rom 9:28). The Fathers interpreted this in two ways. The Son Himself is the Word, the Logos – the eternal Word became small – small enough to fit into a manger. He became a child, so that the Word could be grasped by us. In this way God teaches us to love the little ones. In this way He teaches us to love the weak. In this way He teaches us respect for children. The child of Bethlehem directs our gaze towards all children who suffer and are abused in the world, the born and the unborn. Towards children who are placed as soldiers in a violent world; towards children who have to beg; towards children who suffer deprivation and hunger; towards children who are unloved. In all of these it is the Child of Bethlehem who is crying out to us – it is the God who has become small who appeals to us. Let us pray this night that the brightness of God’s love may enfold all these children. Let us ask God to help us do our part, so that the dignity of children may be respected. May they all experience the light of love, which mankind needs so much more, than the material necessities of life.”
Homily of Pope Benedict XVI on the Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord, 2006
“Today, the Son of God is born and everything changes. The Saviour of the world comes to partake of our human nature; no longer are we alone and forsaken. The Virgin offers us her Son as the beginning of a new life. The true light has come to illumine our lives so often beset by the darkness of sin. Today we once more discover who we are! Tonight we have been shown the way to reach the journey’s end. Now must we put away all fear and dread, for the light shows us the path to Bethlehem. We must not be laggards; we are not permitted to stand idle. We must set out to see our Saviour lying in a manger. This is the reason for our joy and gladness: this Child has been “born to us”; he was “given to us”, as Isaiah proclaims (cf. 9:5). The people who for for two thousand years has traversed all the pathways of the world, in order to allow every man and woman to share in this joy, is now given the mission of making known “the Prince of peace” and becoming His effective servant in the midst of the nations.”
Homily of Pope Francis on the Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord, 2015
(via Quote/s of the Day - 25 December - Christmas Day!)