St. Leo The Great (born 4th
century, Tuscany?—died November 10, 461) was one of the few popes termed great. His pontificate saw the disintegration of the
Roman Empire in the West and the formation in the East of theological
differences that were to split Christendom.
Leo the Great exhorts us, in
celebrating Christmas, the Nativity of the Lord, to recognize that the
incarnation ennobles our humanity. Christian remember your dignity!
Dearly beloved, today our Savior
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.
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