“We are reminded that though this life must ever be a
life of toil and effort, yet that, properly speaking, we have not to seek our highest
good. It is found, it is brought near us, in the descent of the Son of God from
His Father's bosom to this world…. No longer need men of ardent minds weary
themselves in the pursuit of what they fancy may be chief goods; no longer have
they to wander about and encounter peril in quest of that unknown blessedness
to which their hearts naturally aspire, as they did in heathen times. The text
speaks to them and to all, ‘Unto you," it says, ‘is born this day in the
city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.’
“Nor, again, need we go in quest of any of those
things which this vain world calls great and noble. Christ altogether
dishonoured what the world esteems, when He took on Himself a rank and station
which the world despises. No lot could be more humble and more ordinary than
that which the Son of God chose for Himself.”—English theologian, writer, and
Catholic convert St. John Henry Newman (1801-1890), “Sermon 17: Religious Joy,” in Parochial and Plain Sermons, Volume 8 (1908), in The
Newman Reader
The image accompanying this post, The Nativity,
is a 1523 oil on panel painting by Italian Renaissance artist Lorenzo Lotto (c.
1480-1556/1557).
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