9781644135945

The Christmas Cycle
however, now live and have communion with the glorified Christ. We, too, shall share this divine
life if we share in His passion.
Prayer
O God, whose praise the martyred Innocents confessed this day, not by speech, but in their
death; mortify in us all the evils of vice, that Thy faith which our tongues profess, our lives also
may by their actions confess. Through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Sunday within the Octave of Christmas (1)
In the middle of the night the Word of God descended into the homes of the Egyptians and slew
every first-born among them. Israel was then freed from the Egyptian captivity. The Introit of the
Mass for this Sunday reminds us of this marvelous delivery. “While all things were in quiet silence
and the night was in the midst of her course, Thy almighty Word leapt down from heaven from
the royal throne” (Ws 18:14 f.) and released Israel from the chains of the Egyptians from which
they yearned so long to be freed. This descent of the angel among the people of Israel is a foreshadowing
of the descent of the Son of God to free mankind when He comes to us at Christmas.
“God sent His Son, made of woman, made under the law, that He might redeem them who
were under the law; that we might receive the adoption of sons” (Epistle). This is the mystery
of Christmas, the mystery of the love, wisdom, justice, and mercy of God. We were slaves to
the Egyptians; we served the severe taskmasters of this life: the world, the flesh, and the devil.
God, looking upon our misery, sends His Son to become a slave, to assume our bondage, to
purchase our freedom. Christ becomes subject to all the ills to which the human race is subject;
He must be born as men are born, He must grow to manhood, He must suffer, He must die.
He must be like to us in all things except sin. He is subject even to the law of Moses, since He
is a Hebrew. He faithfully observes this law, which was fashioned for a sinful and stiff-necked
people, and which had become for them an insufferable burden.
On this Sunday we find the Son of God, the almighty Word, with His mother and His foster
father in the temple, humbly submitting to the prescriptions of the law of Moses, as if He had
been conceived in sin like His fellow men. From His submission to the law one might suppose
that He, too, had been conceived in a natural way, by the desires of man and by a human father,
not by the will and power of God. For Him the law was not necessary, but He submits to it
joyfully and willingly. He has become a slave for us in order to free us from our bondage. Surely
there has never been a more sublime example of perfect love and condescension. The Son of God
descends from His royal throne and exchanges His divine freedom for the chains of men in order
that men may be free. Such an act of divine condescension demands our careful contemplation.
“God sent His Son” to redeem us “that we might receive the adoption of sons.” This is
freedom, indeed. Not only are we freed from the bondage of sin, but we are made sons of God
and share the majesty of the Son of God. “And because you are sons, God hath sent the Spirit
of His Son into your hearts, crying: Abba, Father. Therefore now he is not a servant, but a son;
and if a son, an heir also through God” (Epistle). But this redemption which the Son of God has
wrought in us is not merely a liberation from the slavery of the world, the flesh, and the devil;
it elevates us to a higher sphere and introduces us to a new life. “But as many as received Him,
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