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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