The Vigil of the Nativity

Thoughts for the Week - Fr. R. Taouk 
24th December 2017

The Word Was Made Flesh by St. Augustine

That day is called the Birthday of the Lord on which the Wisdom of God manifested Himself as a speechless Child and the Word of God wordlessly uttered the sound of a human voice. His divinity, although hidden, was revealed by heavenly witness to the Magi and was announced to the shepherds by angelic voices.

My mouth shall speak the praise of the Lord, of that Lord by whom all things were made and who was made (flesh) amid all the works of His hands; who is the Manifestor of His Father, the Creator of His Mother; Son of God born of the Father without a mother, Son of Man born of a mother without a father; the great Day of the Angels, small in the day of men; the Word as God existing before all time, the Word as flesh existing only for an allotted time; the Creator of the sun created under the light of the sun; ordering all ages from the bosom of His Father, from the womb of His Mother consecrating this day; remaining there, yet proceeding hither; Maker of Heaven and Earth brought forth on this Earth; unspeakably wise, wisely speechless; filling the whole world, lying in a manger; guiding the stars, a nursling at the breast; though insignificant in the form of man, so great in the form of God that His greatness was not lessened by His insignificance nor was His smallness crushed by His might. When He assumed human form He did not abandon His divine operations, nor did He cease to reach "from end to end mightily and to order all things sweetly".

When clothed in the weakness of our flesh He was received, not imprisoned, in the Virgin's womb so that without the Food of Wisdom being withdrawn from the Angels we might taste how sweet is the Lord. Let no one believe, then, that the Son of God was changed into the Son of Man; rather, let us believe that, with the perfect preservation of His divine nature and the perfect assumption of human nature, He, remaining the Son of God, became also the Son of Man. For the fact that the Scriptures say "The Word was God" and "The Word was made flesh" does not mean that the Word became flesh in such a way as to cease to be God since, because the Word was made flesh, in that same flesh "Emmanuel, God with us" was born.

When the Word assumed flesh in time, so that He might enter into our temporal life, He did not, in this flesh, give up His eternity, but gave immortality to this flesh. Thus He, "as a bridegroom coming out of his bride-chamber, hath rejoiced as a giant to run the way", who, "though he was by nature God, did not consider being equal to God a thing to be clung to", but, so that for our sake He might become what He was not, "He emptied himself", not laying aside the nature of God, but "taking the nature of a slave", and by this nature "being made like unto men", not in His own nature (as God), but "appearing in the form of man".