FIFTY-FIFTH LESSON
Christmas.
"A child is born to us."—IsA. ix. 6.
My dear children, Christmas is to us all and to all Christians a day of happiness and joy. In families the birthday of a child is celebrated every year with great rejoicings; in the same manner, and with still greater cause, the Church celebrates every year the birth of the divine Infant our Redeemer.
In those happy days of old, when, to quote the expressions of an eminent writer of the present age, the feasts of the Holy Church were looked upon as belonging to each Christian family, then indeed was Christmas a chosen time for family meetings and rejoicings. On returning from midnight Mass and adoring the holy Infant in His lowly crib at some distant village, which was lighted up by merry bonfires, what a circle of happy faces crowded round the paternal hearth, and warming themselves in the cheering blaze of the old yule log, long since chosen and set aside for the solemn anniversary, beguiled the night-long vigil, by singing in chorus many a pious canticle, the burden of which was ever and ever again:
Christmas! Christmas Hail to Christmas!
And can such raptures of joy astonish us, my children? When we remember that this day the work of our redemption began, that on this day a Saviour was born to us: we may well ask ourselves where a Christian can meet with a greater subject of joy
We also will rejoice, and, like those good people, we also will go to church to celebrate this solemn day; but first of all, let us prepare for so doing, by reading in the Gospel the affecting recital of the birth of our Saviour. The moment announced by the prophets for the birth of the Saviour of the world had arrived at last. The Roman emperor, Caesar Augustus, published a decree ordering the enrolling of all the inhabitants of his empire. Each individual was obliged to return to his native town, there to set down his name and profession. Joseph and Mary left Nazareth, a town of Galilee where they lived, to go to Bethlehem the native place of David, their ancestor. There Mary gave birth to her first born, her only child Jesus our Lord and Saviour. She wrapped Him up in swaddling clothes and laid Him in a manger.
There were in the neighborhood of Bethlehem some shepherds who passed their nights in the fields, even during winter, to guard their flocks. All at once an Angel appeared to them, and they were surrounded by a celestial light which caused them great fright. Then the Angel said: "Fear not, for behold I bring you good tidings, which shall be of great joy to all men. For this day, in the city of David, there is born unto you a Saviour who is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you. You shall find the Infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger." And at the same time a numerous troop of the celestial armies joining the Angel began to praise God singing:
Glory to God in the highest: and on earth peace to men of good will.
As soon as the Angel had reascended to heaven, the shepherds said to one another: "Let us go to Bethlehem, to see what the Lord has ordered to be announced to us." They made great haste, and found in the stable Mary and Joseph; they also found the infant Jesus laid in the manger. On seeing Him, they recognized the truth of what had been told them about this Child, and afterwards all those who heard mention made of Him, wondered at what the shepherds related. After adoring the divine Child, the shepherds went back to their flocks, praising and glorifying God. Meanwhile Mary carefully treasured up the remembrance of all these things, and in her heart she meditated on them.
Such is, my dear children, according to the Gospel, the account of our Lord's birth. This event includes much that is surprising and mysterious: God became man, and even a little child: the king of heaven who willed to be born in a stable; Angels who celebrate this event by celestial concerts; poor people, simple shepherds, who are the first to receive the good tidings. All these mysteries are intended to convey useful lessons to our minds. It is by God's will that all this took place, and the slightest circumstances of our Lord's birth remind us, my children, that he came into this world to redeem us, to instruct us, to be loved by us.
Jesus Christ, my children, today receives that life which in a few years he will sacrifice on the cross for the salvation of the world. To propitiate his father's justice, it required a holier and a purer victim, than any that had been as yet offered up; then he offered himself, and as he could not, as God, submit either to sufferings or to death, he became man, so that it might be possible for him to feel in his body those sufferings which were to redeem us from our sins; in a few short years, this divine body will be covered with wounds, loaded with insults, nailed to a cross! The precious blood of the Saviour will cover the earth; but Jesus Christ will not begin to suffer only at the time of His passion. From today, from the first instant of His birth, He deigns to submit to the privations of poverty, to the weakness of childhood, to the inclemency of the winter season; He has scarcely entered this world and already He suffers, He weeps for us and for our sins, He expiates our pride by His humiliations and His lowliness, our disobedience by His entire submission to his Father's will, to Mary's orders; He is laid on straw, to expiate our fastidiousness; and the innocent tears which, like those of any other infant coming into this world, flow abundantly down His cheeks, redeem in His Father's eyes those guilty tears which are but too often the result of our perversity. O my Saviour, shall we ever be grateful enough for so many graces?
The infant Jesus becomes also our teacher. In a short time, my children, the sublime lessons of the Gospel will flow from His divine lips; and even now, although He does not speak, Jesus already teaches us and preaches to us; the sight of His humble crib says more than the most eloquent speeches. He condemns at once our vanity, our love of pleasure, and of the goods of this world; He teaches every virtue. O my children, could you ever again be undutiful when you remember the obedience of the infant Jesus? Could you ever again give way to feelings of pride when thinking of the humility of the infant Jesus? Could you still be hard to the poor, vain enough to despise them, when the infant Jesus himself was poor and barely clad in mean coarse clothing.
Finally, Jesus likens himself to us, that we may cleave to Him all the more. Does not every particular of His birth, make Him more and more an object for love? The graces He brings us, the sufferings He endures for our sake, and the amiable traits with which He manifests himself to us. If He had come on this earth in all the splendor of His majesty, in all His glory, and surrounded by Angels, His grandeur might have dazzled and frightened us; perhaps we should never have dared to approach Him; but He comes as a child, who smiles and calls on us—as a brother sent us by God, and who turns towards us His outstretched arms.
How happy you are, my children, still to be at that age at which the infant Jesus is more especially your friend, your model. And you too, the poor of Jesus Christ, you the first called to the manger of Bethlehem, how fully privileged you appear to me. Yes, Christmas is really your feast. In the midst of its restless pursuits, of its business, of its frivolous pleasures, the world, alas, does not pay great attention to children, or to the poor; it takes little heed of them, and even sometimes disdains them. But after all, what does it matter? The infant Jesus loves them, and today His highest blessings are for them.
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