Sermons 148–153

[On the same.] Today, brothers, we ought to pay back yesterday's sermon; today we ought to repeat the joy of the Lord's nativity: when a virgin conceives, a virgin gives birth, a virgin remains, it is not custom but sign; not reason but power; it is the Author, not nature; not common but unique; divine, not human. So let the labor of empty philosophy cease: that Christ was born was not necessity but power; it was honor, it was not injury; it was a mystery of godliness, it was not a loss to the Godhead; it was the restoration of human salvation, it was not a diminishing of the divine substance. He who without being born made man from untouched clay, by being born made himself man from an untouched body; the hand that deigned to take up clay for our fashioning deigned also to take up flesh for our restoration. So that the Creator is found in his creature, that God is found in flesh, is an honor to the creature, not an injury to the Creator. But he thinks it an outrage who thinks clay more precious than flesh. Perhaps he regrets that, from the injury of clay, he has been changed into the honor of flesh, into the glory of man? Man, why are you so cheap to yourself, who are so precious to God? Why, so honored by God, do you so dishonor yourself? Why do you ask what you were made from and not ask for what you were made? Was not this whole house of the world that you see made for you? For you the light poured in drives away the surrounding darkness; for you the night was tempered, for you the day was measured; for you the sky was made radiant with the varied brightness of sun, moon and stars; for you the earth was painted with flowers, groves and fruits; for you a wonderful multitude of living creatures, beautiful in the air, the fields and the water, was created, so that sad solitude might not spoil the joy of the new world. Hence he made you of earth, so that you might be lord of earthly things and share in common with them in the community of their substance; yet he did not so equal you, earthly as you are, with the earthly creatures as not also to make you, animated from heaven, equal to the heavenly ones; and so that you might have reason in common with God and a body in common with the beasts, he gave you a soul from heaven, he gave you a body from earth, so that in you the joined concord of heaven and earth might be kept. Still your Creator considers what to add to your honor: he places his image in you (Gen 1), so that a visible image might make the invisible Maker present on earth; and he gave you his place among earthly things, so that so vast a possession of the world might not be without the Lord's deputy. And if this is so, why is it now thought an injury when God has mercifully taken into himself what he made through himself in you, and has willed to be truly seen in man, in whom before he willed to be seen as an image; and has granted that he himself should be the reality, who before had received man as a likeness? A virgin conceived, a virgin gave birth: let not the conception disturb you, nor the hearing of the childbirth confound you, since virginity excuses whatever belongs to human shame. Or what harm to modesty is there where the Godhead enters into partnership with an integrity always friendly to it; where an angel is the go-between, faith the bridesmaid, chastity the betrothal, virtue the gift, conscience the judge, God the cause, integrity the conception, virginity the childbirth, a virgin the mother? Let no one, then, judge in a human way what is done by a divine mystery; let no one examine a heavenly mystery by earthly reason; let no one treat the secret of a new thing from custom; let no one measure what is unique by example; let no one make an outrage out of kindness; let no one run into danger from salvation. Certainly, whoever wants to know higher things, let him run back to the law, seek the knowledge of the law through the law, and learn the Author's deed by the Author's authority. The law relates (Gen 2) that God created man for his own life; that he commanded the earth to bring forth fruits for man in willing service; that he commanded wild beasts, cattle and herds to be subject to human power, not to human skill, so that man, knowing no labor and ignorant of pain, might possess delights in blessedness. But that man might not have all this, an angel who was counted among the first envied him, and preferred to be changed into the devil rather than see man so full of glory. Burning with this envy, he attacks the woman with deceits and leads the virgin to taste the forbidden fruit: the virgin, led astray, soon leads astray her husband, a virgin, and casts down the state of life, while she serves the food of death, the fodder of sin; and she who had been made as a unique comfort becomes herself the material of the whole ruin. Hence the first sin, hence the origin of death, hence labor, hence pain, hence groaning, hence the condition of our bitter servitude was propagated. For man, before the lord of all, was cast down into slavery to all, and he who was feared by all fears all; and he who reigned by power is scarcely strong by skill. Hence, brothers, hence it is that the order of Christ's birth is such: the devil had come to a virgin; an angel comes to Mary, so that what the evil angel had cast down a good angel might raise up. He urged faithlessness, this one faith; she believed the tempter, this one believes the Author. Christ is born, so that by being born he might restore a corrupted nature; he took on infancy, he submits to nursing, he runs through the ages of life, so as to restore the one perfect, abiding age that he himself had made: he carries man, so that man can no longer fall; he whom he had made earthly he made heavenly; man, animated by a human spirit, he quickens into a divine spirit; and so he lifts him wholly into God that he leaves nothing in him of sin, of death, of labor, of pain, of earth, by the gift of our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, now and always and through the immortal ages of ages. Amen.

[On the Nativity of Christ and the peace of Christians.] At the coming of our Lord and Savior, and in the presence of his body, the angels, leading heavenly choirs, brought good news to the shepherds, saying: “I announce to you great joy, which will be for all the people” (Luke 2). Borrowing the voice from those holy angels, we too announce to you great joy. For today the Church is at peace, and the heretics in anger; today the ship of the Church is in port, and the fury of the heretics is tossed on the waves; today, brothers, the shepherds of the Church are secure, and the heretics in turmoil; today the Lord's sheep are safe, and the wolves rage; today the Lord's vineyard is in abundance, and the workers of iniquity in want; today the people of Christ, dearest ones, is exalted, and the enemies of truth are humbled; today, beloved, Christ is in gladness and the devil in mourning; today the angels are in exultation and the demons in confusion. What more is there to say? Today Christ, who is the King of peace, coming forth with his peace, has put to flight all dissension, driven out disputes, thrown discord into confusion; and as the splendor of the sun lights the sky, so he lights the Church with the brightness of peace. “For to you is born today,” he says, “the Savior of the world.” O how desirable is the name of peace, how firm a foundation of the Christian religion, and the heavenly ornament of the Lord's altar! And what can we say worthily of peace? Peace is the name of Christ himself, as the Apostle says: “For Christ is our peace, who has made both one” (Eph 2): both, which were at odds not in judgments nor in faith but through the devil's envy. Indeed, as when a king comes forth the streets are cleaned and the whole city is crowned with various flowers and decorations, so that nothing may appear unworthy of the king's countenance, so now, as Christ the King of peace comes forth, let all that is sad be taken away from our midst; and as truth dawns, let falsehood be put to flight, let discord flee, let concord shine. And as we often see happen when pictures of kings or brothers are painted, that to declare the marks of their unanimity between the two the skilled painter places Concord in a woman's dress behind the back of each, embracing both with her arms to show that those who appear separated in body agree in judgment and will; so now the peace of the Lord stands in the middle and, joining each of us in her caressing lap, teaches separate bodies to come together into one mind with linking arms; and in them without doubt the prophetic word is fulfilled which says: “And there will be a counsel of peace between them both” (Zech 6). And yesterday our common father opened with a Gospel sermon on peace, and today we bring out a word of peace; he received us yesterday with upturned hands in a word of peace, and today we run to meet him with open breast and outstretched arms, with gifts of peace. Now wars are destroyed. The beauty of peace has taken hold of all things; now the devil is in mourning and the whole troop of demons in lamentation; now there is gladness in heaven and exultation among the angels, to whom peace is especially familiar: for even the heavenly powers marvel at it, among whom its perennial spring is found, from which earthly beings too are sprinkled by certain drops falling from it. And so even if peace is praised on earth by the saints, the splendor of its praise overflows into heaven: the heavenly angels praise it, and say: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will.” You see, brothers, how all heavenly and earthly beings send each other gifts of peace: the heavenly angels announce peace to the earth; the saints on earth praise Christ, who is our peace, placed in heaven, and cry out in mystic choirs: “Hosanna in the highest.” Let us too, then, say with the angels: Glory to God in the highest, who has humbled the devil and exalted his Christ; glory to God in the highest, who has put discord to flight and established peace. See, brothers, the angelic voice exulting: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace.” I tell you the devil's art, whose cunning you too are not ignorant of. Satan saw the firmness and stability of faith; he saw it fenced by the piety of its doctrines; he saw it abounding in the fruits of good works; and so he went mad against them all and burned with rabid fury, to tear apart concord, to uproot love, to break peace; but may peace always be with us.

[On the flight of Christ into Egypt.] If speech does not open the Virgin's conception and the Virgin's childbirth, if the understanding does not receive it and the human mind does not grasp it, who will speak of God having fled like a man? “An angel of the Lord,” it says, “appeared to Joseph in sleep, saying: Take the child and his mother, and flee into Egypt” (Matt 2). If we have said that it belonged to kindness that Christ was born, what shall we say of the fact that Christ is read to have fled? Perhaps, as we said he was born to restore nature, let us say that he fled to call back the fugitives. And indeed, if, to call back the straying sheep, he himself wanders in the mountains, how would he not flee after the fleeing peoples so as to bring them back? “Take the child and his mother, and flee into Egypt.” Why is a heavenly cause so handled that human understanding is confounded, the soul wearied, the intelligence labors, the hearing is dulled, faith wavers, hope totters, and belief itself gives way? “Take the child and his mother, and flee into Egypt.” When man persecutes, God flees; when the earth rages, heaven trembles; and as the dust flies, the angels are troubled with dread, and the Father's dread is shown in the Son's flight. “Take the child and his mother, and flee into Egypt.” When Saul persecuted David, he took refuge in Judea, and the neighborhood received him (1 Sam 21–22 [1 Kgdms 21–22]); the house of one widow was enough to hide Elijah (1 Kgs 17 [3 Kgdms 17]). When Christ flees, a place is lacking, a province fails, his homeland does not help. As he moves, neither neighboring nations nor bordering regions suffice: he seeks the grim place of Egypt, an exile foreign in dress, barbarous in language and customs. “Take the child and his mother, and flee into Egypt.” If the refuge of all things flees, the help of all lies hidden; if the strength of all is afraid, if the defense of all does not defend itself, why is human flight condemned, trembling blamed, fear accused? Why is Peter charged with a crime because he denies, John because he is terrified and flees, all the disciples because they desert out of fear (Matt 26; Mark 14)? And granted, brothers, that these things happened, why are they committed to writing, why related in books, why recited through the ages, why made known in daily readings, why spread among all the nations? So that every language, place, age and time may know God's fear? For as the reading of virtues lifts minds to progress, so the recital of weaknesses casts them down. What, then, does the evangelist mean by writing these things for everlasting memory? It belongs to a devoted soldier to keep silent about his king's flight, to report his constancy, to speak of his deeds of valor, to be silent about his fears, to disclose brave deeds, to say nothing of weaknesses, to blot out reverses, to proclaim victories, so that he may both break the boldness of the enemy and rouse the courage of his comrades. So the evangelist, by relating such things, seems to have stirred up the barking of heretics and taken away a defense from the faithful. “Take,” he says, “the child and his mother, and flee into Egypt.” Flight is commanded, not a journey; necessity is imposed, not choice: the angel cuts out a hidden journey abroad, not a free passage, so that the road, troublesome in itself, might always be more troublesome because of fear. Now it is time to ask for what reason these things were written for us. “Take the child and his mother, and flee into Egypt.” When a warrior flees in war, it is a matter of skill, not of fear; when God flees from man, it is a matter of mystery, not of dread: when the mighty withdraws from the weak, he does not fear the pursuer but draws him out into the open; for he who wishes to bring back a public victory over the enemy wants to conquer in the open; he does not allow himself to engage in a hidden conflict who wishes to hand down his triumph to the ages. A secret victory and a hidden valor leave no example to posterity. Hence Christ flees, to yield to the time, not to Herod: for he did not flee death, who had come to bring back victory over the enemy; nor did he fear human snares, who had come to lay open all the wiles of the devil's fraud; nor did he fear then, when as an infant he did not know how to fear according to his manhood and could be without fear according to his Godhead. Brothers, if Christ had then been slaughtered in that flock of sucklings, death would have been an accident to him, not his will; it would have been weakness, not virtue; necessity, not power; and it would have been the reward of innocence, not the glory of majesty. Certainly, where then would be what God said: “You shall not cook a lamb in its mother's milk” (Exod 23; 34)? “For it will come about,” he says, “that Herod will seek the child.” Herod was seeking, but the devil was seeking through Herod, who saw that the magi, whom he held as chiefs in his errors, had escaped him. If Christ, bound in swaddling clothes, occupied at his mother's breasts, with a silent tongue, hidden in his works, with no walking yet, had changed the devil's standard-bearers, that is, the magi, into most faithful leaders, the devil now saw what Christ at full age could do: and so he stirred up the Jews and incited Herod to forestall the infancy of Christ, which he suspected, to anticipate the future insignia of his power, so that the cunning schemer might take away the standard of the cross, deadly to him and most victorious for us. The devil felt, he felt that Christ would soon restore life by his teachings and powers, and would take hold of the whole world, he who while still wailing took hold of what was the summit of the world, according to the prophet: “Before the child knows how to call father or mother, he will take the strength of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria” (Isa 8). And, as the Jews themselves prove when they say, “You see that we gain nothing; look, the whole world goes after him” (John 12), Christ had promised through the law and the prophets that he would come in the flesh, rise through the stages of life, announce the glory of the heavenly kingdom, preach the teaching of faith, put demons to flight by the sole command of his word, give sight to the blind, running to the lame, speech to the mute, hearing to the deaf, remission to sinners, life to the dead. Hence Christ, who was to fulfil these things as a man, as an infant put off death; he did not flee it. In short, the evangelist asserts that his flight came not from fear of danger but from the mystery of prophecy, saying: “Take the child and his mother, and flee into Egypt.” And afterward: “So that what was said by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled: Out of Egypt I called my son” (Hos 11). Christ fled, therefore, so that the truth of the law, the faithfulness of prophecy, and the testimony of the Psalmist might stand, as the Lord himself says: “It was necessary that all things be fulfilled that are written in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms concerning me” (Luke 24). Christ fled for us, not for himself; Christ fled to keep the mysteries to be dispensed in their times. Christ fled to assist future virtues, to take away from the faithless the material for excuse, and to give believers confidence in faith, because in persecution it is better to flee than to deny. In short, Peter, because he would not flee, denied (Mark 14); John, so as not to deny, fled.

[On the same.] Today's reading has moved hearts, shaken our inmost parts, astonished our hearing. “Behold,” it says, “an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in sleep, saying: Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee into Egypt” (Matt 2). He at whose birth virginity offered no resistance, reason did not stand in the way, nature did not contradict: what power, what force, what danger prevails so that he is compelled to flee? “Take the child and his mother, and flee into Egypt.” It would have been more reverent to say, “Go into Egypt,” so that it would be a journey, not a flight; a choice, not a necessity; a judgment, not fear; human at least, if not divine. But as it is, flight is commanded, commanded from heaven, commanded through an angel, so that heaven seems to have feared more than the earth. “Take the child and his mother, and flee into Egypt.” Flee into Egypt, from your own people to strangers, from the holy to the sacrilegious; from your temple to the shrines of demons, from the region of the saints to the homeland of idols. So the breadth of Judea is not enough; so the widespread possession of the world is narrowed; the secret place of the temple does not hold him. The crowd of priests does not receive him; the untraceable number of kinsmen does not hide him; so that profane Egypt is hired as the hiding place of the Godhead. So the matter presses, if there is no time to consider the virgin's modesty, the mother's labor, the shame of her sex, the danger to Joseph, the weariness of the distance, the ruin of the whole household, and, harder than these, that Jews were to live as strangers among gentiles, with whom they had no fellowship; indeed it was a deep shipwreck of the law by transgression. O how hard it is to live abroad even among fellow citizens and brothers! He knows what his own home is who feels another's. And where is that word, “Lord, you have become our refuge” (Ps 90:1 [LXX 89:1])? And, “Our God is refuge and strength” (Ps 46:1 [LXX 45:2])? If the refuge flees, if strength fears, if the garrison moves away, what life, what hope, what security, what defense is there? One widow was enough for Elijah against the snares of a free king (1 Kgs 17 [3 Kgdms 17]); for Christ the whole of Judea is not enough against the threats of a captive Herod. Elijah consumes with fire from heaven those sent against him (2 Kgs 1 [4 Kgdms 1]); Christ is saved only by flight. Let it be enough so far to have heaped up complaints over Christ's flight. Brothers, that Christ fled was a matter of mystery, not of fear; it was the liberation of the Creator, not his danger; it belonged to divine power, not to human frailty; he did not flee for the death of the Author, but fled for the life of the world. For why should he who had come to die flee death? Christ would have killed the whole cause of our salvation if he had allowed himself to be killed as a little child. Christ had come to confirm by examples those whom he had taught by precepts, and himself to do what he had commanded to be done, and to prove by sight that things were possible which seemed impossible to the hearing. He had come to pour into the world the knowledge of his Godhead and to take away the ignorance of the human race. He had come to rouse the sluggish hearts of mortals to faith by his powers. He had come to overcome the devil in public combat, so that he might be conquered by the divine command before all and laid low by human example. He had come to fulfil the promises of his presence, so that those to whom he had given knowledge of himself he might allow to see him. He had come so that the Jew might come back from contempt of the law. He had come to bring the gentiles to faith. He had come to choose apostles as teachers of the world, and fill them with heavenly teachings, fortify them with powers, arm them with signs, so that by signs they might tame the wild, by powers heal the sick, by teachings instruct the teachable; and, in sum, he had come to destroy death by dying, to dissolve hell by entering it, to unlock the tombs by rising, to give earthly beings to heaven by ascending. All these things would certainly have perished for us if Christ, when he was in the cradle, had not fled. But, hearer, you may say: since he could have done otherwise, why did he submit himself to such great, such outrages? Why? First, because man could not be saved without man, nor could human outrages be cut off without human outrages: he who wishes to protect another makes the other's cause his own; one who does not suffer with another cannot cut away his sufferings. Christ took us into himself so as to give himself to us; he bore our sufferings so as to take away our sufferings. Hence Christ fled, to temper our flights in persecutions. A martyr who has been seized ought to keep constancy; one not seized ought to flee the persecutor, so as to grant the persecutor time to come to his senses and not take away from himself the time for prayer, as the Lord says: “If they persecute you in this city, flee to another” (Matt 10). He who provokes a persecutor makes one; he who avoids him corrects him. We ought, then, to flee and not to provoke, if we want our persecutors to be saved, for whom we are commanded to pray: “Pray,” he says, “for those who persecute you” (Matt 5). We must pray, we must flee, so that he who rages through ignorance may be healed, and he who suffers may receive the palm of patience, not undergo the danger of rashness. Brothers, if the martyrs had not fled from Saul, they would not have made Paul both apostle and martyr. Christ taught that this should be done, he left us this example, so that, since the Lord fled, the servant may not think flight unworthy. And there is another reason why Christ fled, why as an infant he put off the time of his passion, why he mounted the cross after the thirtieth year of his bodily life: so that, having made man perfect for life, he might restore him perfect into life, and give back to heaven such a man as he had given to the earth. And that he fled into Egypt has another cause. He fled to Egypt so as to rebuke the faithlessness of the Jews by the faith of the gentiles: for Egypt obediently received her Lord whom Judea had driven out, so that by this figure he might show that the gentiles were to be preferred in faith to the Jews, as the Church to the Synagogue.

[On the slaughter of the infants.] Where zeal tends, how far envy leaps, where jealousy is carried, Herod's monstrousness has made plain today: in his rivalry for the narrow bounds of a temporal kingdom he tries to extinguish the rising of the eternal King, as the evangelist says: “Then Herod, seeing that he had been mocked by the magi, was very angry; and he sent and killed all the boys who were in Bethlehem and in all its districts” (Matt 2). “Seeing that he had been mocked by the magi.” Impiety grieves that it has been mocked, cruelty rages that it has been put off, deceit gnashes its teeth that it has been deceived, and fraud turned back on itself is dashed against itself. Herod shrieks, falling himself into the snare he set; hence he unsheathes the iniquity he had concealed; from the faith of faithlessness he takes arms; with earthly fury he seeks him whom he does not believe born from heaven; he drives the camp of soldiers to the bosoms of mothers, he besieges the citadel of kindness among the breasts, he hardens the sword against tender breasts, he pours out milk before blood, he makes them feel death before life, he thrusts darkness on those entering the light. So acts the master of evil, the minister of guile, the craftsman of wrath, the inventor of crime, the author of impiety, the robber of kindness, the enemy of innocence, the foe of nature, evil to all, worse to his own, worst to himself, whom Christ fled not to escape him but so as not to see him. Reaching on high, he falls from on high; knocking at heaven, he enters the depths; he goes against himself who goes against God; he kills himself who tries to kill Life, because salvation cannot be taken by destruction, life by killing, eternity by an end. O ambition, how always blind! O presumption, how always most evil! O how he loses what is granted who grasps at what is not granted! Herod, besieging an earthly kingdom, attacks the heavenly; gaping after earthly things, he rushes against divine things, and pursues kindness itself with all impiety. He had heard that a king was born; he had asked where, when, from where, and for what; but how he ought to act he did not ask, because with him there was love of sinning, and love of innocence did not abide. Destined for wickedness, ready for sacrilege, prepared for crime, he does not seek the causes of innocence; he abrogates law, confounds right and wrong; he is the companion of his own wickedness; to him fairness is hateful, iniquity always a friend; he lives by slaughter, defends himself with blood, follows credulity; with him everything stands on fear, nothing on love. Herod, then blind, so seeks Christ with swords, tracks him with gore, searches for him with cruelty; fearing a successor, he advances against the Author; he slays the innocent, wishing innocence to perish. The ruler of the people, the guardian of morals, the censor of discipline, the investigator of justice, the defender of fairness, the preserver of innocence, the enlarger of the people, makes the cause of the Innocent the crime of the innocents, turns the gift of the prophets into punishment, orders the rising of the Author to be the setting of those just risen, commands the business of the Savior to be the peril of those to be saved. A judge calls those who hear, questions those who speak, convicts those who deny, presses the guilty, strikes the culpable, rebukes accomplices, adds partners, hands over the exposed to sentence. What of the infants? Their tongue was silent, their eyes saw nothing, their ears heard nothing, their hands did nothing; and since there is no act of theirs, where is the fault? They took on death who did not know how to live; time did not help them, age did not excuse them, silence did not defend them; with Herod their only crime was that they were born. And truly, how should they not give back to nature what was lent, from whom the case of the Author was being exacted? Unhappy man, who prepared everything for his accusation, left no room for excuse, but prepared everything for punishment! Who will excuse him whom innocence strikes, infancy attacks, milk like blood accuses? So much against Herod. But Christ, foreknowing the future, aware of secrets, judge of thoughts, searcher of minds, why did he abandon those whom he knew would be sought because of him, and knew would be killed because of him? Born a king, and a heavenly king, why did he neglect the soldiers of his innocence, why did he disregard an army of his own age, why did he so leave the guard assigned to his cradle that the enemy, about to seek the king alone, ravaged the whole army? Brothers, Christ did not despise his soldiers but promoted them; he gave them to triumph before they lived; he made them win victory without a contest; he presented them with crowns before limbs; he willed them to pass over vices by virtues, to possess heaven before earth, and to be grafted into divine things before human ones. Christ, then, sent his soldiers ahead; he did not lose them; he received his battle lines; he did not abandon them. Blessed are they whom we have seen born to martyrdom, not to the world. Blessed are they who have exchanged labors for rest, pains for refreshment, sorrows for joy. They live, they live, who truly live, who deserve to be killed for Christ. Blessed the wombs that bore such ones, blessed the breasts that poured themselves into such ones, blessed the tears shed for such ones, which conferred on those weeping the grace of baptism. For in different ways, with one gift, the mothers are baptized in their tears and the sons in their blood. The mothers suffered in the martyrdom of their sons; for the sword passing through the sons' limbs reached the mothers' hearts, and it must be that they share the reward who were partners in the passion. The little one smiled at his slayer, the infant played with the sword, the suckling gazed at the horror of the striker as if at his nurse; an age that did not know the light rejoiced as it was about to die; the infant son looked on every man not as an enemy but as a parent. The mothers bore whatever there was of anguish and pain, and so they will not lack the joy of martyrdom, they who shed the tears of martyrdom. At this point let the hearer pay attention, pay attention, so as to understand that martyrdom does not stand by merit but comes by grace. In little ones what will, what choice was there, where nature itself was captive? For martyrdom, then, we owe everything to God, nothing to ourselves. To conquer the devil, hand over the body, despise one's inmost parts, endure torments, weary the torturer, win glory from injuries and life from death, is not of human virtue but of divine gift. Whoever runs to martyrdom by his own strength does not reach the crown through Christ: but may he lead us to the heavenly pasture who deigned to lie in our stable, Jesus Christ of Nazareth our Lord, who lives and reigns for ages of ages. Amen.

[On the same.] Brothers, it does not belong to human understanding to open the mystery of the virginal childbirth: what nature does not have belongs to the Author, not to nature; it is the work of the Spirit above, which flesh cannot perceive; where there is no sign of humanity, there is a sign of Godhead, as the prophet says: “The Lord God himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will conceive in the womb” (Isa 7). Where there is nothing of earthly custom, there everything is of heavenly order; what is not of the world cannot be subject to worldly understanding. A conception that keeps the virgin, a childbirth that leaves her a virgin: what begets is divine, not human; God walks where no trace of human passage is found; custom fails when miracles are done; signs do not regard customs; uniqueness admits no example, as today's reading shows, which tells of the divine battles of little ones. Rising together, the King's cohort longs all to die before him rather than to die with him: the soldiers dedicated to Christ began to serve before they lived, to fight before they played, to shed blood before they longed for the breasts' milk: their burning souls could not bear the delays of the body; flying from the lap to the raging wedges of the enemy, they exchange caresses for virtues, kisses for wounds, ointments for the sword, so that they might inhabit heaven before the earth, carry the rewards of the spirit before those of the flesh, and bring back triumphs to God before receiving the nourishment of men. Truly, truly, brothers, these are martyrs of grace: they confess though silent, they fight without knowing, they conquer unaware, they die unconscious, they take palms in ignorance, they seize crowns not knowing it. So as virginity, knowing no corruption, conferred honor on the mother, so infancy, knowing nothing of suffering, seized the palms and crowns of martyrdom. But what shall we say of the fact that the King himself, who ought to have stood, alone fled, and fled at the Father's warning? This flight belongs to inmost love, not to cowardly fear. If Christ had stood, the synagogue would have had them as sons; the Church would not have had them as martyrs.