On the Nativity of Christ in the Flesh

Blessed be that first day of yours, Lord, wherewith this day of Your Feast is stamped! Your day is like You, in that it shows mercy unto men, in that it is handed down and comes with all generations.

This is the day that ends with the aged, and returns that it may begin with the young! A day that by its love refreshes itself, that it may refresh by its might us decayed creatures. Your day when it had visited us and passed, and gone away, in its mercy returned and visited us again: for it knows that human nature needs it; in all things like You as seeking us.

The world is in want of its fountain; and for it, Lord, as for You, all therein are thirsty. This is the day that rules over the seasons! The dominion of Your day is like Yours, which stretches over generations that have come, and are to come! Your day is like You, because when it is one, it buds and multiplies itself, that it may be like You!

In this Your day, Lord, which is near unto us, we see Your Birth that is far off! Like to You be Your day to us, Lord; let it be a mediator and a warranter of peace.

Your day reconciled Heaven and earth, because therein the Highest came down to the lowest.

Your day was able to reconcile the Just One, who was angry at our sins; Your day forgave thousands of sins, for in it bowels of mercy shone forth upon the guilty!

Great, Lord, is Your day; let it not be small upon us, let it show mercy according as it used to do, upon us transgressors!

And if every day, Lord, Your forgiveness wells forth, how exceeding great should it be upon this day! All the days from the Treasure of Your bright day gain blessings. All the feasts from the stores of this feast have their fairness and their ornaments. Your bowels of mercy upon Your day make abundant to us, O Lord! Make us to distinguish Your day from all days! For great is the treasure-house of the day of Your Birth; let it be the ransomer of debtors! Great is this day above all days, for in it came forth mercy to sinners. A store of medicines is this Your great day, because on it shone forth the Medicine of Life to the wounded! A treasure of helpful graces is this day, for that on it Light gleamed forth upon our blindness! Yea, it also brought a sheaf unto us; and it came, that from it might flow plenty upon our hunger. This day is that forerunning Cluster, in which the cup of salvation was concealed! This day is the first-born feast, which, being born the first, overcomes all feasts. In the winter which strips the fruit of the branches off from the barren vine, Fruit sprang up unto us; in the cold that bares all the trees, a shoot was green for us of the house of Jesse. In December when the seed is hidden in the earth, there sprouted forth from the Womb the Ear of Life. In March when the seed was sprouting in the air, a Sheaf sowed itself in the earth. The harvest thereof, Death devoured it in Hell; which the Medicine of life that is hidden therein did yet burst open! In March when the lambs bleat in the wilderness, into the Womb the Paschal Lamb entered! Out of the stream whence the fishers came up, He was baptized and came up Who incloses all things in his net; out of the stream the fish whereof Simon took, out of it the Fisher of men came up, and took him. With the Cross which catches all robbers, He caught up unto life that robber! The Living by His death emptied Hell, He unloosed it and let fly away from it entire multitudes! The publicans and harlots, the impure snares, the snares of the deceitful fowler the Holy One seized! The sinful woman, who was a snare for men, He made a mirror for penitent women! The fig that cast its fruit, that refused fruit, offered Zacchæus as fruit; the fruit of its own nature it gave not, but it yielded one reasonable fruit! The Lord spread His thirst over the well, and caught her that was thirsty with the water that He asked of her. He caught one soul at the well, and again caught with her the whole city: twelve fishers the Holy One caught, and again caught with them the whole world. As for Iscariot, that escaped from His nets, the strangling halter fell upon his neck! His all-quickening net catches the living, and he that escapes from it escapes from the living.