A READING FROM A SERMON BY ST LEO
THE GREAT
Rejoice, dearly beloved, for today our Saviour is born! There can be no
place for sadness on the birthday of life itself. For this day has swallowed up
all fear of death, and in its promise of eternity has replaced fear with joy.
No one at all is excluded from today=s festive celebration, for
there is a single great cause of joy which applies to everyone alike. For our
Lord is the destroyer of sin and death; and since he found no one at all free
from guilt, so he came in order to set all alike free. Let the Saint then be
filled with joy, for he is hastening to receive his palm. Let the sinner
rejoice, for he is invited to receive pardon. Let the gentile be filled with
eager hope, for he is called to life.
According to
the inscrutable disposition of Divine Providence, so far beyond our capacity to
fathom, when the fullness of time had come, the Son of God took upon himself
the nature of the human race, in order to reconcile us with our Creator. He did
this so that the devil, through whom death entered the world, might be
conquered in the very nature which he himself had conquered.
Thus the Word of
God, the Son of God, who is himself God, in order to free mankind from eternal
death, became a man. He bent down in order to take our lowliness upon himself,
yet without in any way diminishing his own majesty. Remaining what he was he
took upon himself what he was not. The divine and human natures came together
in him in such a way that the lower would not be annihilated by the glory
conferred upon it, nor the superior diminished by what it had assumed.
If Christ were
not true God, dearly beloved, he could never have conferred upon us the remedy
we need. On the other hand, if he were not true man, he could have offered us
no example for our imitation. It was in recognition of this that on the day of
his birth the exulting Angels first of all sang Glory be to God on high; and
then they announced: Peace on earth to men of good will. These Angels
could see the heavenly Jerusalem
being constructed out of every nation on earth. If they, from their lofty
height, rejoice so much before this ineffable work of divine love, how much
more ought we to be glad, we who contemplate it from the lowliness of our
mortality?
Dearly
beloved, let us together give thanks to God the Father, through his Son, in the
Holy Spirit: for in his great mercy and
love he has made us a new creation. Let us put aside the old man with his
actions. Now that we have been made participants in the generation of Christ,
let us renounce all works of the flesh. O Christian: recognise your dignity!
You have been made a sharer in the divine nature! Do not then by an unworthy
way of life return to your former wretchedness! You have been snatched from the
power of darkness, and transferred into the light and the Kingdom of God.
You have been made a temple of the Holy Spirit: do not by your behaviour drive
him away again, and subject yourself once more to the tyranny of the devil! For
Christ who has redeemed you in mercy will judge you in truth: he who reigns
with the Father and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen.
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