Friday, December 20, 2019

THE VIGIL OF CHRISTMAS: Homily of St. Bonaventure



THE VIGIL OF CHRISTMAS: Homily of St. Bonaventure

It is impossible to find adequate analogies between natural phenomena and things above the natural order; yet we can see that the way things come to birth differs in different cases : the way brightness comes from light is not the way the shoot grows in the vine or the flower springs from the branch or tree-trunk.

Brightness is a product of light and is of the same nature as light; but we cannot say that light is the same thing as brightness or that brightness is identical with light. Similarly, the Son comes from the Father and is of the same nature as the Father, but the Son is not the Father and the Father is not the Son. Hence, in her commemoration of this glorious birth the Church calls Christ the Brightness of eternal Light.

When a shoot springs up in a vine, the vine has become fruitful and reached fulfilment; yet the vine is as whole as it was before and nothing has been soiled or damaged. That is the way God was produced, or conceived, in the Virgin: he was her fulfilment and her fruit; he did not crush or force or stain her: he sanctified her. Therefore, comparing the Child within her to a shoot, the Lord made the prophet say, I will raise up from the stock of David a faithful scion; and again, You heavens, send dew from above, you skies, pour down upon us the rain we long for, him, the Just One. Let the earth be opened and bud forth a Savior. The blessed Virgin was humble, firm and fruitful, like the earth. Like the earth she opened—not physically, to receive corruption, but spiritually, when she believed what the angel told her; and in that fruitful earth the Savior was formed, like a bud.

When a flower appears on a branch or a tree, it is not a sign of decay; it is an embellishment. It does no harm to what it grows from; it is merely an additional beauty. So also when God was born, there was no opening or corrupting of the Virgin's body, for shut this gate must ever be, Ezekiel said, nor open its doors to give man entrance. There was only the addition of fruitfulness and extra beauty. Hence Christ's birth is compared to the emergence of a flower: From the stock of Jesse a scion shall burgeon yet; out of his roots a flower shall spring.

Thus, before he was born in the womb, the Son of Mary was born of God the Father as brightness is born of light; conceived in the womb, he came to the Virgin Mother as a shoot comes to a vine; he emerged from the womb as flowers do from branches and stems and the trunks of trees. At his first birth he was born—and always will be born, throughout eternity—of God the Father: and that was his divine birth. At his second birth—his conception—and at his third, he was born of the Virgin Mother: and those were his human births. His second and third births are revealed to us on earth for our healing; his first will be shown us in heaven for our reward. The second is the object of today's commemoration, with its reading about his life in the womb; the third is the occasion of tomorrow's feast, with its chant, "For our sakes a child is born"; the first will be our theme for all eternity.

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