The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ (Christmas)

The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ is among the greatest feasts of the Christian year, a feast of the first class and a holy day of obligation, on which the faithful adore the mystery of God made man. On the twenty-fifth of December the Church proclaims that the eternal Son of the Father, by whom all things were made, was born of the Virgin Mary at Bethlehem, taking to himself our human nature that he might raise us to share in his divine life. It is the feast of the Word made flesh, who dwelt among us full of grace and truth.

The Word made flesh

Saint Luke tells how, in the days of Caesar Augustus, Joseph went up with Mary from Nazareth to Bethlehem, the city of David, to be enrolled; and while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered, and she brought forth her firstborn Son, wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. To shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night an angel appeared, announcing “good tidings of great joy… for this day is born to you a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord”; and suddenly a multitude of the heavenly host praised God, singing, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will.”

Saint John unfolds the inner meaning of that night: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” The Church teaches that in Christ the fullness of the Godhead was joined to a true and complete human nature, so that he who lay in the manger is at once true God and true man, one Person in two natures. This is the wonder the Fathers loved to ponder: that the Maker of heaven and earth became a little child, and that God so loved the world as to give his Only-begotten Son.

The three Masses of Christmas

By ancient custom every priest may offer three Masses on Christmas Day: the first at midnight, recalling the eternal birth of the Son from the Father and his birth in the night at Bethlehem; the second at dawn, of the shepherds hastening to the manger; and the third in the day, which sings of the Word made flesh. The Church surrounds the feast with an octave and prolongs the joy of the Nativity through the days of Christmastide, that the faithful may dwell long upon so great a gift.

The collect of the day’s Mass prays that the new birth in the flesh of God’s Only-begotten Son may set us free, whom the old bondage holds beneath the yoke of sin. On this holy day the Church bids all the faithful kneel at the manger and adore, with the shepherds and the angels, the Saviour born for us; and she proclaims to every age the peace and the great joy of the night when God came to dwell among his people.