From death, from dark, from deafness, from despairs,
This life, this light, this Word, this joy repairs.
Gift better than himself God doth not know;
Gift better than his God no man can see.
This gift doth here the giver given bestow;
Gift to this gift let each receiver be.
God is my gift, himself he freely gave me;
God’s gift am I, and none but God shall have me.
Man altered was by sin from man to beast;
Beast’s food is hay, hay is all mortal flesh.
Now God is flesh and lies in manger pressed
As hay, the brutest sinner to refresh.
O happy field wherein this fodder grew,
Whose taste doth us from beasts to men renew.
26 December
A Reading from a treatise On the Trinity by Hilary of Poitiers
How can we make a fitting recompense to God for stooping down to us so graciously? The one only-begotten God, born of God in a way that cannot be described, is enclosed in the shape of a tiny human embryo in the womb of the Virgin and grows in size. He who upholds the universe, in whom and through whom everything came into existence, is brought forth according to the law of human birth; he at whose voice the angels and archangels tremble, and the heavens, the earth and all the elements of the world melt, is heard in the cries of a baby. He who is invisible and incomprehensible, who cannot be judged by the reckonings of sight, sense and touch, lies wrapped in a cradle. If any consider these conditions unfitting for a God, they will have to admit that their indebtedness to such generosity is all the greater, the less they are suited to the majesty of God.
God, through whom humanity came into being, was under no compulsion to become human himself. However, it was necessary for humanity that he should be made flesh and dwell among us. He made our flesh his home by assuming our body of flesh. We have been raised up because he has stooped down to us: his abasement is our glory. He, being God, made our flesh his residence, that we in turn might be restored to God.
27 December
A Reading from a Hymn on the Nativity by Ephrem of Syria
Your mother is a cause for wonder: the Lord entered her
and became a servant; he who is the Word entered
and became silent within her; thunder entered her
and made no sound; there entered the Shepherd of all,
and in her he became the Lamb, bleating as he came forth.
Your mother’s womb has reversed the roles:
the Establisher of all entered in his richness,
but came forth poor; the Exalted One entered her,
but came forth meek; the Splendrous One entered her,
but came forth having put on a lowly hue.
The Mighty One entered, and put on insecurity
from her womb; the Provisioner of all entered
and experienced hunger; he who gives drink to all entered
and experienced thirst: naked and stripped
there came forth from her he who clothes all.
28 December
A Reading from a sermon of Mark Frank
Christ comes as soon to the low cottage as to the loftiest palace, to the handmaid as to the mistress, to the poor as to the rich; nay, prefers them here, honours a poor humble maid above all the gallant ladies of the world. You will see his humility most if you consider his wrapping up. He that measures the heavens with his span, the waters in the hollow of his hand, who involves all things, all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, in whom all our beings and well-beings are wrapped from all eternity; comes now to be wrapped and made up like a new-born child – who can unwind or unfold his humility?
The clothes his dear mother wrapped him in are the very badges of humility; a rag, or torn and tattered clothes: such were the clothes she wrapped him in – such, he is so humble, he will be content with, even with rags. What make we then such ado for clothes? Our blessed Lord here is content with what comes next. But Lord! to see what ado have we about our apparel! this lace, and that trimming; this fashion, and that colour; these jewels, and those accoutrements; this cloth, and that stuff; this silk, and that velvet; this silver, and that gold; this way of wearing, and that garb in them; as if our whole life were raiment, our clothes heaven, and our salvation the handsome wearing them. We forget, we forget our sweet Saviour’s rags, his poor ragged swaddling-clothes and our garments witness against us to our faces, our pride, our follies, our vanities at the best.
Well, but though he was content to be wrapped in swaddling-clothes, and those none of the handsomest, neither, may we not look for a cradle at least to lay him in? No matter what we may look for, we are like to find no better than a manger for that purpose, and a lock of hay for his bed, and for his pillow, and for his mantle too. A poor condition, and an humble one indeed, for him whose chariot is the clouds, whose palace is in heaven, whose throne is with the Most High. What place can we hereafter think too mean for any of us? Stand thou here, sit thou there, under my foot-stool – places of exceeding honour compared to this. What, not a room among men, not among the meanest, in some smoky cottage, or ragged cell; but among beasts! Whither hath thy humility driven thee, O Saviour of mankind? Why, mere pity of a woman in thy mother’s case, O Lord, would have made the most obdurate have removed her from the horses’ feet, the asses’ heels, the company of unruly beasts, from the ordure and nastiness of a stable.
And what of us? Though there be no room for him in the inn, I hope there is in our houses for him. It is Christmas time, and let us keep open house for him; let his rags be our Christmas raiment, his manger our Christmas cheer, his stable our Christmas great chamber, hall, dining-room.
[O thou that refusedst not the manger, refuse not the manger of my unworthy heart to lie in, but accept a room in thy servant’s soul. Turn and abide with me. Thy poverty, O sweet Jesu, shall be my patrimony, thy weakness my strength, thy rags my riches, thy manger my kingdom; all the dainties of the world, but chaff to me in comparison of thee; and all the room in the world, no room to that, wheresoever it is, that thou vouchsafest to be. Heaven it is wheresoever thou stayest or abidest; and I will change all the house and wealth I have for thy rags and manger.]
29 December
A Reading from a sermon of John Henry Newman preached before the University of Oxford in 1843
Little is told to us in Scripture concerning the Blessed Virgin, but there is one grace of which the evangelists, in a few simple sentences, make her the pattern of faith. Zechariah questioned the angel’s message, but Mary said, ‘Behold, the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.’ Accordingly Elizabeth, speaking with an apparent allusion to the contrast thus exhibited between her own highly-favoured husband, righteous Zechariah, and the still more highly-favoured Mary, said, on receiving her salutation, ‘Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. Blessed is she that believed for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord.’
But Mary’s faith did not end in a mere acquiescence in divine providence and revelations: as the text informs us, she ‘pondered’ them. When the shepherds came, and told of the vision of angels which they had seen at the time of the nativity, and how one of them announced that the infant in her arms was the ‘Saviour, which is Christ the Lord,’ while others did but wonder, ‘Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.’ Again, when her son and Saviour had come to the age of twelve years, and had left her