The Birth of Jesus

"How new was the light for the world, how graced was all of heaven,
What greater radiance than his when Christ came forth from the womb of Mary !

He came forth in a new splendor, even as that beaming
bridegroom leaving the bridal chamber, a pleasing, beautiful figure.
Among the sons of men, whose appearance more radiant,
whose beautiful lips spread grace so alluringly !

O thoughtful piety. Lest we be enslaved by the yoke
and power of sin, the Lord most high took up the members
of a servant, and he, who from before the beginning of the world
dressed everything that was born with his gifts,
only had some poor rags for covering;
the one who neither deep waves do not contain
nor the surface of the whole earth, nor the spaces of the sky
stayed as an infant in the body of a virgin and, God,
rested in a narrow manger.

Hail, O holy mother! You gave birth to a king
who rules the heaven and the earth through the ages
and whose name and kingdom embrases everything in an eternal circle;
for, having in your blessed womb was the joy of a mother and the honor of a virgin,
you appear to have no equal among women past or future;
alone and without a model among women, you were pleasing to Christ"

Sedulius, Carmen Paschale (II, 48-69)

Prayer

O Lord my God, creator of the universe, grant first that I may pray to you as I should, and then that I might be worthy of hearing from you, so that in you I may be free. – cfr.Augustine, Soliloq. 1, 2

By Ateneo Pontificio "Augustinianum"