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Tuesday, December 25, 2012

On the Nativity of Christ - St Gregory Nazianzus

    Christ is born, give glory; Christ is from the heavens, go to meet him; Christ is on earth, be lifted up. "Sing to the Lord, all the earth"; and to say both together, "Let the heavens be glad and let the earth rejoice," for the heavenly one is now earthly. Christ is in the flesh, exult with trembling and joy; trembling because of sin, joy because of hope. Christ comes from a Virgin; women, practice virginity that you may become mothers of Christ. Who would not worship the one "from the beginning"? Who would not glorify "the Last"?

    This is our festival, this is the feast we celebrate today in which God comes to live with human beings, that we may journey toward God, or return,  - for so to speak thus is more exact - that laying aside the old human being we may be clothed with the new, and that as in Adam we have died so we may live in Christ, born with Christ and crucified with him, buried with him and rising with him.


A Reading from Festal Orations (Book, 2008) [WorldCat.org],   Oration 38, sections 1 & 4.