The Nativity – Fra Bartolomeo

“In Christ, Born of the Virgin’s womb, the nature does not differ from ours, because His nativity is wonderful. For He Who is true God, is also true man, and there is no lie in either nature. ‘The Word became flesh’ by exaltation of the flesh, not by failure of the Godhead: which so tempered its power and goodness as to exalt our nature by taking it, and not to lose His own by imparting it. In this nativity of Christ, according to the prophecy of David, ‘truth sprang out of the earth, and righteousness looked down fro heaven.’ In this nativity also, Isaiah’s saying is fulfilled, ‘let the earth produce and bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together.’ For the earth of human flesh, which in the first transgressor, was cursed, in this Offspring of the Blessed Virgin only produced a seed that was blessed and free from the fault of its stock. And each one is a partaker of this spiritual origin in regeneration; and to to every one when he is re-born, the water of baptism is like the Virgin’s womb; for the same Holy Spirit fills the font, Who filled the Virgin, that the sin, which that sacred conception overthrew, may be taken away by this mystical washing.” – Pope St. Leo I, Sermon on the Feast of the Nativity 

May your lives and your faith this day be strengthened as we celebrate the Incarnation of Jesus Christ on Christmas Day.

 Tom Perna

+AMDG