CHRISTMAS
Christian, Remember Your Dignity
Is 52:7-10; Hb 1:1-6; Jn 1:1-5, 9-14
From a sermon by Saint
Leo the Great, Pope
Dearly beloved, today our Saviour is
born. Let us rejoice. Sadness should have no place on the birthday of life. The
fear of death has been swallowed up; life brings us joy with the promise of
eternal happiness. No one is shut out from this joy; all share the same reason
for rejoicing. Our Lord, victor over sin and death, finding no man free from
sin, came to free us all. Let the saint rejoice as he sees the palm of victory
at hand. Let the sinner be glad as he receives the offer of forgiveness. Let
the pagan take courage as he is summoned to life.
In
the fullness of time, chosen in the unfathomable depths of God’s wisdom, the
Son of God took for himself our common humanity in order to reconcile it with
its creator. He came to overthrow the devil, the origin of death, in that very
nature by which he had overthrown mankind. And so at the birth of our Lord the
angels sing in joy: Glory to God in the highest, and they
proclaim peace to men of good will as they see the heavenly
Jerusalem being built from all the nations of the world. When the angels on
high are so exultant at this marvelous work of God’s goodness, what joy should
it not bring to the lowly hearts of men?
Beloved,
let us give thanks to God the Father, through his Son, in the Holy Spirit,
because in his great love for us he took pity on us, and when we were
dead in our sins he brought us to life with Christ, so that in him we
might be a new creation. Let us throw off our old nature and all its ways and,
as we have come to birth in Christ, let us renounce the works of the flesh. Christian,
remember your dignity, and now that you share in God’s own nature, do not
return by sin to your former base condition. Bear in mind who is your head and
of whose body you are a member. Do not forget that you have been rescued from
the power of darkness and brought into the light of God’s kingdom.
Through
the sacrament of baptism you have become a temple of the Holy Spirit. Do not
drive away so great a guest by evil conduct and become again a slave to the
devil, for your liberty was bought by the blood of Christ.
Glory to God in the highest, and they proclaim peace to men of good will
MERRY
CHRISTMAS TO YOU.
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