as an act of righteousness.
The coming of the Saviour was promised to Abraham and to his descendants for ever. These are the children of promise, to whom it is said: ‘If you belong to Christ, then you are descendants of Abraham, heirs in accordance with the promise.’
23 December
O Emmanuel
O Emmanuel, our king and lawgiver,
the desire of all nations and their Saviour:
Come and save us, O Lord our God.
A reading from Said or Sung by Austin Farrer
The universal misuse of human power has the sad effect that power, however lovingly used, is hated. To confer benefits is surely more godlike than to ask them; yet our hearts go out more easily to begging children than they do to generous masters. We have so mishandled the sceptre of God which we have usurped, we have played providence so tyrannically to one another, that we are made incapable of loving the government of God himself or feeling the caress of an almighty kindness. Are not his making hands always upon us, do we draw a single breath but by his mercy, has not he given us one another and the world to delight us, and kindled our eyes with a divine intelligence? Yet all his dear and infinite kindness is lost behind the mask of power. Overwhelmed by omnipotence, we miss the heart of love. How can I matter to him? we say. It makes no sense; he has the world, and even that he does not need. It is folly even to imagine him like myself, to credit him with eyes into which I could ever look, a heart that could ever beat for my sorrows or joys, a hand he could hold out to me. For even if the childish picture be allowed, that hand must be cupped to hold the universe, and I am a speck of dust on the star-dust of the world.
Yet Mary holds her finger out, and a divine hand closes on it. The maker of the world is born a begging child; he begs for milk, and does not know that it is milk for which he begs. We will not lift our hands to pull the love of God down to us, but he lifts his hands to pull human compassion down upon his cradle. So the weakness of God proves stronger than men, and the folly of God proves wiser than men. Love is the strongest instrument of omnipotence, for accomplishing those tasks he cares most dearly to perform; and this is how he brings his love to bear on human pride; by weakness not by strength, by need and not by bounty.
24 December
Christmas Eve
A Reading from a sermon of Augustine
Awake! For your sake God was made man! ‘Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light.’ For your sake, I say, God was made man.
Eternal death awaited you had he not been born in time. Never would you have been freed from sinful flesh, had he not taken on himself the likeness of sinful flesh. Everlasting would have been your misery, had he not acted in mercy. You would never have returned to life, had he not shared your death. You would have been lost, had he not hastened to your aid. You would have perished, had he not come.
Let us then joyfully celebrate the coming of our salvation and redemption. Let us celebrate the hallowed day on which he who is the great and eternal day came from the great and endless day of eternity into our own short span of time. ‘He has become our righteousness, our sanctification, our redemption, and so, as it is written: Let those who glory, glory in the Lord.’
‘Truth,’ then, ‘has sprung up from the earth.’ Christ who said, ‘I am the truth,’ is born of a virgin. ‘And righteousness has looked down from heaven’: because believing in this new-born child, we are justified not by ourselves but by God. ‘Truth has sprung up from the earth’ because the Word was made flesh. ‘And righteousness has looked down from heaven’ because ‘every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.’ ‘Truth has sprung up from the earth’ – flesh born of Mary. ‘And righteousness has looked down from heaven’ for ‘you can receive nothing unless it has been given you from heaven.’
‘Being justified by faith, let us be at peace with God’ for indeed ‘righteousness and peace have kissed each other’ through our Lord Jesus Christ, for ‘truth has sprung up from the earth.’ Through him we have access to that grace in which we stand, and our boast is in our hope of sharing the glory of God. St Paul does not say at this point ‘our glory’ but ‘the glory of God’; because righteousness has not proceeded from us but has ‘looked down from heaven’. Therefore let those who glory, glory not in themselves, but in the Lord.
For this reason, when our Lord was born of the Virgin, the message of the angels was: ‘Glory to God in the highest, and peace to his people on earth.’ For how could there be peace on earth unless ‘truth has sprung up from the earth’, that is, unless Christ were born of our flesh? And ‘he is our peace who made the two into one’ that we might be people of good will, bound together by the bond of unity.
Beloved, let us then rejoice in this grace, so that our glorying may bear witness to a good conscience, and may we glory, not in ourselves, but in the Lord. That is why Scripture says: ‘He is my glory, the one who lifts up my head.’ For what greater grace could God have made to dawn upon us than to make his only Son become the Son of Man, so that we might in our turn become children and heirs of God? Ask yourselves if this were merited; ask for its reason, for its justification, and see whether you find anything but sheer grace.
CHRISTMAS
God so loved us that for our sakes he,
through whom time was made, was made in time;
older by eternity than the world itself,
he became younger in age than many of his servants in the world;
God, who made man, was made man;
he was given existence by a mother
whom he brought into existence;
he was carried in hands which he formed;
he was nursed at breasts which he filled;
he cried like a baby in the manger in speechless infancy– this Word
without which human eloquence is speechless.
Augustine
At this feast of the nativity
let each person wreathe the door of his heart
so that the Holy Spirit may delight in that door,
enter in and take up residence there;
then by the Spirit we will be made holy.
Ephrem of Syria
The readings for the Twelve Days of Christmas focus upon the mystery of the incarnation. The various authors chosen, both Eastern and Western, meditate not only upon the wonder of Christ’s birth, but the scandal of its particularity. The significance of Bethlehem, the crib, the roles of Mary and Joseph, the sheer poverty and vulnerability of the Holy Family, are themes that recur throughout Christian literature.
Proper readings for the Feasts of St Stephen, St John the Evangelist and The Holy Innocents which, depending on where Christmas Day falls in the week, may or may
