Christmastide 2020

Christ speaks both in us and for us when, in one of the psalms, he says to the Father:  I will be satisfied when your glory is revealed.  For he and the Father are one, and whoever sees him sees the Father also...He will transform us and show us his face, and we shall be saved; all our longing will be fulfilled, all our desires will be satisfied.

But this has not yet been accomplished...So while all this remains in the future, and we still walk by faith, absten from the Lord, while we still hunger and thirst for justice and with inexpressible longing yearn for God's beauty, let us reverently celebrate the day he was born into our own servile condition.

Since we can as yet form no conception of his generation by the Father before the daystar, let us keep the festival of his birth of a virgin in the hours of the night.  Since it is still beyond our understanding that his name endures for ever and existed before the sun, let us at least recognize his dwelling that he has placed beneath the sun.  We cannot yet hold him as the only Son, abiding for ever in his Father, so let us recall his coming forth like a bridegroom from his chamber.  We are not yet ready for the banquet of our Father, so let us contemplate the manger of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Augustine, Fifth Century

{A Prayer of David.} Hear the right, O LORD, attend unto my cry, give ear unto my prayer, that goeth not out of feigned lips.

2Let my sentence come forth from thy presence; let thine eyes behold the things that are equal.

3Thou hast proved mine heart; thou hast visited me in the night; thou hast tried me, and shalt find nothing; I am purposed that my mouth shall not transgress.

4Concerning the works of men, by the word of thy lips I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer.

5Hold up my goings in thy paths, that my footsteps slip not.

6I have called upon thee, for thou wilt hear me, O God: incline thine ear unto me, and hear my speech.

7Shew thy marvellous lovingkindness, O thou that savest by thy right hand them which put their trust in thee from those that rise up against them.

8Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings,

9From the wicked that oppress me, from my deadly enemies, who compass me about.

10They are inclosed in their own fat: with their mouth they speak proudly.

11They have now compassed us in our steps: they have set their eyes bowing down to the earth;

12Like as a lion that is greedy of his prey, and as it were a young lion lurking in secret places.

13Arise, O LORD, disappoint him, cast him down: deliver my soul from the wicked, which is thy sword:

14From men which are thy hand, O LORD, from men of the world, which have their portion in this life, and whose belly thou fillest with thy hid treasure: they are full of children, and leave the rest of their substance to their babes.

15As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness. 

Psalm 17