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Dear Brothers and Sisters, this year we celebrate God’s grace again, the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord, the Christmas feast. We would like to record very beautiful, profound words from the ancient times of the Church by Pope Leo the Great, whom I quote:
The Word of God, God the Son of God, who is the beginning, was with God by whom all things were made, and without whom was made nothing that was made. He became a man that he might free man from eternal death, bending down to the taking of our loneliness without diminution of his own majesty. So that remaining what he was and taking upon himself what he was not, he might join the form of a true servant to that form in which he is equal to God the Father, and by such a bond, so link both natures that this exaltation might not swallow up the lesser, nor adoption lessen the higher, preserving therefore the substance of both natures and uniting them in one person.
Lowliness is assumed by majesty, infirmity by power, mortality by immortality, and to pay the debt of our present state, an inviolable nature is united to our suffering nature. True God and true man are welded into the unity of one Lord, so that as we need it for our healing, one and the same mediator of God and man might by the one suffer death and by the other rise again from the dead.
Rightly then did this birth of our salvation bring no taint of corruption to the virginal integrity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, for the birth of truth was the defense of her virginity. Such a birth defeated Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God, whereby he would be both joined to our lowliness yet remain far above us in his divinity. For unless he were true God, he could bring us no aid. And were he not a true man, he could offer us no example.
The exalting angels therefore sing to the newborn Lord, glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of goodwill, for they see the Heavenly Jerusalem made up from all peoples of the earth. With what joy may not the lowliness of mankind rejoice in this unspeakable work of Divine compassion when the angels in their glory so greatly rejoice. So Pope Leo the Great.
We also have a beautiful text from another saint, Saint John Maria Vianney, the curate of Ars. Let us also listen to his words and meditations on Christmas.
He spoke: God with us is the meaning of the joyful message of the angel. In his humanity, in his childhood, in his poverty, in his humanity, the second person of the Trinity had taken a human nature, a human body, and a human soul, the same as we have. He has become one of us. He is like us in all things with the exception of sin, says the apostle. That is the first step of the mercy of God which we devoutly adore.
In the crib of Bethlehem in his childhood, the Son of God took another merciful step when he appeared upon earth as a child. The Son of God might have appeared upon earth as a grown man, but he did not do this. He abased himself and lay in the crib as a helpless infant.
The heathens have represented Jupiter with lightning in his eyes, falcons at his feet, flaming bolts in his hands, no hand free to bless. Our divine Savior wished to appear very differently, not a threatening, mighty figure, not armed with lightning. No. He appeared as a child full of love, full of tenderness, full of joy. The child looks at everyone. At the sight of the child, all fear vanishes. All may approach a child without fear, the high and the low, the learned and the unlearned, rich and poor.
How near has God come unto us? In his poverty, he is nearer to us. The Savior wanted to be nearer to the poor man. That is why he appeared upon this earth in the utmost poverty. The poor have a special right to the love and the association of the Incarnate Son of God.
No mother can provide a poorer bed for her child than that provided for the Son of God upon earth in the crib. Now through him, the Son of God, poverty is no longer spiteful, no longer shameful, no longer mean. Through him is poverty ennobled, exalted, and sanctified.
His name shall be called Emmanuel, God with us, with us in his humanity, in his childhood, in his poverty. Then we will beseech him to renew and strengthen in us the spirit of self-renunciation, the simplicity of our hearts, the love of poverty, so that the divine infant will make us his own and be and remain with us through all eternity, our Emmanuel, God with us.
And again Pope Leo the Great says: Let us give thanks to God the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit who because of the exceeding great love wherein he has loved us, has had compassion on us, and even when we were dead in sins has quickened us together in Christ that in him we might be a new creature, a new clay.
Let us stir ourselves of the old man with his deeds, for being made partakers of the birth of Christ, let us renounce the deeds of the flesh. Acknowledge, O Christian, the dignity that is yours, being made a partaker of the divine nature. Do not live in an unworthy manner. Do not fall back into your former abjectness of life.
Be mindful of whose head and of whose body you are a member. Remember that you have been rescued from the powers of darkness. Thou art now translated into the light in the kingdom of God by the sacrament of baptism. You have become the temple of the Holy Spirit. Do not by evil deeds drive out from you such a one dwelling with thee, and submit yourself again to the bondage of the devil.
Do not submit yourself again to the bondage of the devil because your prize was the blood of Christ, because in strictness he shall judge you who now in mercy has redeemed you. Who is the Father, and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns world without end. Amen.