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His solitude, and comes upon earth to reign over it by His
goodness and His bounty (GRADUAL, ALLELUIA, OFFER
TORY). Let us hail the Saviour whom God sends to
us ; let us rejoice, as the prophets urge us to do
(COMMUNION), for the God who has just been born, is,
as described by Isaias, the admirable One, the Prince
of Peace, the King of all ages (INTRO IT).
In the Epistle and Gospel of this Mass, our divine
Saviour is set before us as the personification of the ten
der goodness which opens to us all its treasures (EPISTLE),
as the wonder which the shepherds, obedient to the
Angel, went to behold in the manger, filled with
an irrepressible gratitude for the spectacle of which
they were the happy witnesses (GOSPEL). In the Col
lect, the Secret, and the Postcommunion of the
second Mass, the Church prays that, by our works, we
may cause the light of the Incarnate Word to radiate
around us ; that our souls by contact with the Author
of peace may become, in a certain sense, divine and that
the new life, brought to us by the mystery of Christ
mas, may be strengthened within us.
The sung portions of the third Mass on Christmas
morning impress upon us the universal characteristic of
the kingship of Jesus Christ. God, by sending His divine
Son on earth under the appearance of a little child,
effects the wonders of Redemption of which the human
race will be the witness, and by which it will benefit :
"
Let all nations adore Him
"
(INTROIT, GRADUAL,
ALLELUIA) ; Let heaven and earth render homage to
His power
"
(OFFERTORY).
In the beginning of the Epistle to the Hebrews, ap
pointed for the third Mass, the Apostle invites us to
contemplate Jesus Christ as sent by His eternal Father.
An envoy infinitely superior to the angels, of whom