A shoot springs
from the stock of Jesse
The Word became
flesh. And he lived among us, alleluia
(A)
Dearly
beloved, today our Saviour is born. Let us rejoice. Sadness should have no
place on the birthday of life. The fear of death has been swallowed up; life
brings us joy with the promise of eternal happiness. No one is shut out from
this joy; all share the same reason for rejoicing. Our Lord, victor over sin
and death, finding no man free from sin, came to free us all. Let the saint
rejoice as he sees the palm of victory at hand. Let the sinner be glad as he
receives the offer of forgiveness. Let the pagan take courage as he is summoned
to life.
In
the fullness of time, chosen in the unfathomable depths of God’s wisdom, the
Son of God took for himself our common humanity to reconcile it with its
creator. He came to overthrow the devil, the origin of death, in that very
nature by which he had overthrown mankind. And so at the birth of our Lord, the
angels sing in joy: Glory to God in the highest, and they proclaim peace to men
of goodwill as they see the heavenly Jerusalem being built from all the nations
of the world. When the angels on high are so exultant at this marvellous work
of God’s goodness, what joy should it not bring to the lowly hearts of men?
Beloved, let us give thanks to God the Father,
through his Son, in the Holy Spirit, because in his great love for us, he took
pity on us, and when we were dead in our sins, he brought us to life with
Christ, so that in him we might be a new creation. Let us throw off our old
nature and all its ways and, as we have come to birth in Christ, let us
renounce the works of the flesh. Christian, remember your dignity, and now that
you share in God’s own nature, do not return by sin to your former base
condition. Bear in mind who your head is and of whose body you are a member. Do
not forget that you have been rescued from the power of darkness and brought
into the light of God’s kingdom. Through the sacrament of baptism, you have
become a temple of the Holy Spirit. Do not drive away so great a guest by evil
conduct and become a slave to the devil, for your liberty was bought by the
blood of Christ.
Christian, remember your dignity.
From a sermon of Saint Leo the Great, Pope
No comments:
Post a Comment