The Nativity of Our Lord
Thoughts for the Week - Fr. R. Taouk
25th December 2016
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". |