Victimized Children That children who are victims of abandonment or violence may find the love and protection they need.
Prepare the Savior's Coming That Christians, enlightened by the Word incarnate, may prepare humanity for the Savior's coming.
The 7th Day in the Octave of Christmas
Commentary of the day
Julian of Vézelay (c.1080-c.1160), Benedictine monk
1st Sermon of Christmas; SC 192
"The Word was the true Light"
“A peaceful stillness compassed everything and the night in its swift course was half spent. Your all-powerful Word, Lord, bounded from heaven's royal throne” (Wsd 18,14-15).This scriptural text sets out the most holy time when God's all-powerful Word came down to us to tell us of our salvation. Leaving the most intimate depths of the Father it came down into a mother's womb...
“When the night was half-spent”: all was shrouded in the silence of midnight – between the prophets who were no longer shouting out their cry and the apostles who were about to do so... What a wonderful coming, during this midnight silence, for a “mediator between God and man” (1Tm 2,5)... who takes on mortality to save mortals and who will save the dead by his death! In his mediating role he is the “doer of saving deeds in the midst of the earth” (Ps 74[73].12): he died on a cross, “lifted up from the earth” (Jn 12,32) between heaven and earth, a symbol of reconciliation between heaven and earth...
“When night was in the midst of its course”. What is that night? Perhaps it means that period in which, from the beginning of the world to the end of time, the descendants of Adam live in this darkened Egypt, in the thick darkness of their ignorance and wholly unable to see one another (cf. Ex 10,21f.). Indeed, can we see other people when we cannot see their heart? Taking advantage of that darkness covering every heart, deception and lies make themselves at home there... It was in the middle of that night, amongst “those who were seated in darkness” (Lk 1,79; Is 42,7), that “the true light” came “who enlightens everyone coming into this world”. This is the light that will truly cast out all darkness when it will “bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will manifest the motives of our hearts” (1Cor 4,5).