Sermon 369
SERMO 369
Sermon Given in the Restored Basilica
THE BIRTHDAY OF THE LORD
Born in time, eternal.
Our Savior, born of the Father without a day, through whom all days were made, wished to have in the world this birth day, which we celebrate today. Whoever marvels at this day, let him rather marvel at the eternal one abiding before every day, creating every day, born on this present day, freeing us from the evil of the day. Yet marvel more: she who gave birth is both mother and virgin; he who was born is both infant and Word. Rightly did the heavens speak, the angels rejoice, the shepherds celebrate, the magi change, the kings be troubled, and the little ones be crowned. Nurse, mother, our food; nurse the bread coming from heaven and placed in the manger as if the devout animals' fodder. For there the ox knew its owner, and the donkey its Lord’s manger, circumcision and uncircumcision, adhering to the cornerstone, whose first fruits were the shepherds and the magi. Nurse him who made you thus, so that he himself might be made in you, who brought you the gift of fruitfulness and did not take away the honor of virginity when born; who for himself, before he was born, chose both the womb from which he would be born and the day on which he would be born. And he himself created what he chose, so that he might come forth from there like a bridegroom from his chamber, to be seen by mortal eyes, and to testify by the annual increase of light that he had come as the light of minds. The prophets sang of the maker of heaven and earth to be among men on earth; the angel announced that the Creator of flesh and spirit would come in the flesh. John greeted the Savior from the womb in the womb; the old Simeon recognized the infant God; the widow Anna the virgin mother. These are the testimonies of your birth, Lord Jesus, before the waves were laid beneath your feet as you walked, yielded to your command; before the wind was silenced by your command, the dead lived at your call, the sun paled at your death, the earth trembled at your resurrection, and heaven opened at your ascension: before these and other wonders, already done in the age of your youthful body. You were still carried in your mother's arms, yet already acknowledged as the Lord of the world. The same little child from the seed of Israel, and the same God Emmanuel with us.
The eternal Word spoken is eternally nourished.
What is this generation of our Savior, co-eternal with the Father who begets him, when the world marveled at the virgin birth, which pious faith recognized and held onto, but unbelief laughed at and pride feared, being overcome? What is this generation in which the Word was in the beginning, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God? What is this Word, which, having spoken before, was not silent, and by speaking did not cease what was said? What is the Word without time, through which times were made; the Word which opened no one's lips to begin, nor closed to finish; the Word which has no beginning from the mouths of speakers, and opens the mouths of the mute; the Word which is not made eloquent by the tongues of nations, and makes the tongues of infants eloquent? What is this generation, I ask, to which the Father does not yield in dying, because he does not precede it by living? From all intervals of places and times, from all the dispersion of spaces, which we are accustomed to sense either in days or in bodies, let us raise our soul to Him, as much as we can with His help, if in some way we can comprehend both the one who begets not preceding the one who is born, and the one who is born not following the one who begets, Father and Son: neither fathers at the same time, nor sons at the same time, but equally eternal: not both begetting, nor both being born, but one not living without the other. And let us think of the Father eternally begetting, and the Son eternally being born, if we can; if we cannot, let us believe. It is not what we want to say here, but yet it is not far from each of us: For in Him we live, and move, and have our being. Let us transcend our flesh, in which parents live before children; because they grew so that they might generate children, and they age as their children grow; parents lived before their children were born, because children will live even after parents have died. Let us also transcend our souls: they too give birth to something by thinking, that they retain by knowing; but they can lose it by forgetting, because they did not have it before by not knowing. Let us transcend all corporeal, temporal, mutable things, so that we may see above all through whom all things were made. Our ascent is in the heart, because even that by which we ascend is near. But we are far from Him, to the extent that we are dissimilar to Him. Therefore, His likeness ascends to Him, which He made and remade in us, in which, not yet perfected, the weak gaze trembles and cannot contemplate the ineffable glow of the eternal light. Whose radiance the eye of the mind has not yet grasped, who will recount his generation? But the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.
Let us adore the child God born in human condition.
Therefore, this generation, whose day we celebrate today, in which He deemed it worthy to come through Israel and become Emmanuel: God with us in the weakness of the flesh, not with us in the iniquity of the heart; approaching us through what He assumed from us, and freeing us through what He remained in His own - for indeed the Lord visited His servants through mortal weakness to make them free through unchangeable truth - therefore this generation, of which human frailty is somewhat capable; not that which remains without time, without mother above all; but this one which was made in time, without father among all: let us praise, love, and adore this son of the virgin and bridegroom of virgins, born of an incorrupt mother and producing with incorruptible truth, so that in His mercy we may triumph over the cunning of the devil. The devil crept in with a corrupted feminine mind to deceive us: Christ proceeded even with incorrupt female flesh to liberate us.