The Word Was Made Flesh by Dom Prosper Guéranger O.S.B.

The splendour of this Mystery dazzles the understanding, but it inundates the heart with joy. It is the consummation of the designs of God in time. It is the endless subject of admiration and wonder to the Angels and Saints; nay, is the source and cause of their beatitude. The four weeks of our preparation are over - they were the image of the four thousand years which preceded the great coming. But why is it that the celebration of our Saviour's Birth should be the perpetual privilege of this one fixed day; whilst the whole Liturgical Cycle has, every year, to be changed and remodelled, in order to yield that ever-varying day which is to be the feast of His Resurrection - Easter Sunday?

The question is a very natural one, and we find it proposed and answered, even so far back as the fourth century; and that, too, by St. Augustine. The holy Doctor offers this explanation: We solemnise the day of our Saviour's Birth, in order that we may honour that Birth, which was for our salvation; but the precise day of the week, on which He was born, is void of any mystical signification. Sunday, on the contrary, the day of our Lord's Resurrection, is the day marked, in the Creator's designs, to express a mystery which was to be commemorated for all ages. St. Isidore of Seville also adopted this explanation of the Bishop of Hippo.

"On this the Day which the Lord hath made," says St. Gregory of Nyssa, "darkness decreases, light increases, and Night is driven back again. No, brethren, it is not by chance, nor by any created will, that this natural change begins on the day when He shows Himself in the brightness of His coming, which is the spiritual Life of the world. It is Nature revealing, under this symbol, a secret to them whose eye is quick enough to see it; to them, I mean, who are able to appreciate this circumstance of our Saviour's coming. Nature seems to me to say: Know, O Man! that under the things which I show thee Mysteries lie concealed. Hast thou not seen the night, that had grown so long, suddenly checked? Learn hence, that the black night of Sin, which had reached its height by the accumulation of every guilty device, is this day stopped in its course. Yes, from this day forward its duration shall be shortened, until at length there shall be naught but Light. Look, I pray thee, on the Sun; and see how his rays are stronger, and his position higher in the Heavens: Learn from that how the other Light, the Light of the Gospel, is now shedding itself over the whole Earth". (Homily On the Nativity.)

"Let us, my Brethren, rejoice," cries out St. Augustine, "this day is sacred, not because of the visible sun, but because of the Birth of Him who is the invisible Creator of the sun".