Слово на Рождество Христово. (Радость праздника Рождества Христова.). Святого Льва Великого, папы Римского

Our Savior was born today, beloved: let us rejoice. On the birthday of That Life, Which, having abolished the fear of death, brings us the joy of promised immortality, there can be no place for sadness. No one is excluded from participating in this fun; everyone has one common reason to rejoice: for our Lord, the destroyer of sin and death, just as he did not find anyone free from guilt, so he came to free everyone. Let the saint triumph - he is approaching his reward; let the sinner rejoice - he is invited to forgiveness; let the pagan be encouraged, for he is called to life. The Son of God, in the fulfillment of times, determined in the depths of the unsearchable council of God, accepted human nature in order to reconcile it with its Creator, and to defeat the devil, the inventor of death and through it, victorious, also by death. And with what wondrous truth the feat of battle, raised for us, was accomplished! The Almighty Lord comes out against the fiercest enemy not in His greatness, but in our humble form, opposing him with the same image, the same nature that is involved in our mortality, only alien to any sin. It is impossible to say about this one Christmas what is said about everyone: no one is clean from filth, even if he lived only one day on earth (Job 14:4-5). In this one Christmas, nothing passed from carnal lust, nothing flowed from the law of sin. A Virgin is chosen from the kingdom of David's generation, so that she who bears in her womb the sacred fruit will conceive the Son of God and man before the spirit rather than the body. And so that in ignorance of the advice of the Highest She would not be afraid of extraordinary actions, for this purpose she learns through angelic conversation what kind of action should be in Her from the Holy Spirit. She who is soon to be the mother of God is also assured of the integrity of her chastity: for how can she who is promised the action of the power of the Most High not believe in the new conception? Her faith is also confirmed by the testimony of the previous miracle - unexpected fertility is granted to Elizabeth, so it will be undoubted that He who gave conception to the barren woman will also grant it to the Virgin. So, the Word of God, God, the Son of God, who in the beginning was with God, in whom all things were, and without Him nothing came into being (John 1:1-2), - for the liberation of man from eternal death, he became man. Without diminishing His greatness, He descends to the perception of our frailty, so that, remaining what He was and accepting what He was not, He could unite the true image of a servant with the image in which He is equal to the Father, and with such a union bring both natures into one composition so that the lower is not consumed, and the higher is not humiliated by perception. Therefore, in the integrity of the properties of both creatures, united into one Person, baseness is perceived by greatness, weakness by strength, mortality by eternity; to pay our debt, the unchangeable nature was united with the changeable; true God and true man are united in the one Person of the Lord, since in order to heal us it was required that the same Intercessor of God and men could both die in one way and be resurrected in a different nature. It is fair, therefore, that the birth of the Savior did not change virginity at all: for it was the preservation of chastity, the manifestation of truth. Such and such a Christmas, beloved, befitted the power and Wisdom of God - Christ, may He be like us in humanity and superior to us in Divinity; for if He were not the true God, He would not have brought us medicine; and if he had not been a true man, he would not have set an example. And so, at the birth of the Lord, triumphant, the angels sing: glory to God in the highest and proclaim peace on earth, good will toward men (Luke 2:14), because they see the new Jerusalem, created from all the nations of the world. About this ineffable deed of Divine love, how much should people rejoice in their low state, when the high angels rejoice so much about it! Let us give thanks, beloved, to God the Father through His Son in the Holy Spirit; Let us give thanks to the One who, out of His great mercy, loved us, had mercy on us, and made us alive through our sins while we are dead (Eph. 2:5), so that we may be in Him a new creature and a new creation. Let us put aside the old man with his deeds and, having received participation in the Nativity of Christ, let us renounce the works of the flesh. Christian! know your dignity and, having become a participant in the Divine nature, do not return to the old wickedness through an unworthy life. Do not forget of which Head and of which body you are a member; remember that you have been taken out of the dark power and transferred into the light and kingdom of God. Through the sacrament of baptism you have become the temple of the Holy Spirit; Do not drive away such an inhabitant from yourself by evil deeds, and do not expose yourself again to the slavery of the devil: for your price is the blood of Christ, and He who redeemed you in mercy will also judge you in truth. – He who reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit forever and ever. Amen 69. See "Sunday Reading". VII (1843–1844), countries. 325–326. You might be interested in: