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Brookline Carmel Bulletin                         J M J T

December 27, 1959

 

 

Cogitatio Sancta

(Holy Meditation)

 

Passages for meditation from the Christmas Liturgy

 

Invitatory from Matins:  Christ is born unto us:  Come, let us adore!

 

Hymn:  Jesus, Redemptor…

 

Jesus, the Ransomer of man,                            The Father’s Light and Splendor thou,

Who, ere created light began,                         Their endless Hope to thee that bow;

Didst from the sovereign Father spring,            Accept the prayers and praise today

His power and glory equalizing.                   That through the world thy servants pay.

 

Salvation’s Author, call to mind                Thus testifies the present day

How, taking form of humankind,                 Through every year in long array,

Born of a Virgin undefiled,                                That thou, salvation’s source alone,

Thou in man’s flesh becam’st a Child.            Proceedest from the Father’s throne

 

The Heavens above, the rolling main                 And we who, by thy precious Blood

And all that earth’s wide realms contain,            From sin redeemed, are marked for God,

With joyous voice now loudly sing                   On this the day that saw thy birth,

The glory of their newborn King.               Sing the new song of ransomed earth.

 

                                    All honor, laud and glory be,

                                    O Jesu, Virgin-born, to thee;

                                    All glory, as is ever meet,

                                    To Father and to Paraclete.  Amen

 

Lessons from the Second Nocturne of Matins:  Sermon of Pope St. Leo on the Nativity.

           

Lesson IV – Our Savior, dearly beloved, is born today; let us rejoice.  It is not right to be sad today, the natal day of Life – He who has dispelled the fear of mortality and brought us the joy of promised eternity.  Let no man be cut off from a share in this rejoicing.  The cause of our joy is common to every man, because our Lord, the destroyer of sin and death, who finds none guiltless, comes to free all.  Let the holy exult, he draws near to his palm; let the sinner rejoice, he is invited to pardon; let the Gentile be quickened, he is called to life.  For the Son of God, in the fullness of that time which the unsearchable height of Divine Wisdom decreed, assumed human nature to reconcile it with its Author, and conquer the devil, the inventor of death, through that flesh which he had conquered.

 

            Lesson V – In this conflict, which he joined for our sake, Our Lord entered the field of battle with a great and wonderful fairness.  Although he was the almighty Lord, he met our bitter enemy not with the strength of his majesty, but with the weakness of our flesh.  He brought against him the self same form of ours, the self same nature as our nature – but in him, without sin.  Not of this Nativity were written the words applied to all other men:  “Not one is free from defilement, no, not the child whose life on earth is but one day.”  Into this singular birth passed none of the concupiscence’s of the flesh, nor followed any consequences of the law of sin.  A Virgin of the royal stem of David is chosen, and when she was to become pregnant with the Sacred Child, who was both God and Man, she conceived him in her soul before she conceived him in her body.  Lest the stupendous mystery might make her afraid, since she had no knowledge of the Divine plan, she learned by the message of an Angel what was to be done in her by the Holy Ghost.  She believed she would be the Mother of God, yet remain a virgin inviolate.

 

            Lesson VI – Therefore, dearly beloved, let us give thanks to God the Father, through his Son in the Holy Ghost, who for his exceeding charity, wherewith he loved us, hath had mercy on us, and even when we were dead in sins hath quickened us together in Christ, that in him we might be a new creature and a new handiwork.  Therefore, let us put off the old man with his works, and having become sharers in the Sonship of Christ, renounce the deeds of the flesh.  Learn, O Christian, how great is your dignity!  You have been made a partaker in the divine nature!…

 

 

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