Saint Bede (Hom.l,6: CCL 122, 440-42) God in the Inn

Monastic Office of Vigils

A Word in Season, Readings for the Liturgy of the Hours,
New Edition, Augustinian Press 2001.

CHRISTMAS SEASON From from 1^st Jan to Epiphany

WEDNESDAY  Year II (4^th January 2014, Saturday)

First Reading    Song of Songs 6:2 -7:10

Responsory                 Sg 6:3.7.10; Ps 85:11

You are beautiful, my beloved, sweet and lovely as Jerusalem. + My beloved belongs to me and I to him.

V. Kindness and truth have met; justice and peace have embraced. + My beloved belongs ...

Second Reading     From a homily by Saint Bede of England (Hom.l,6: CCL 122, 440-42)

God in the inn

While they were there, Luke says, the time came for her to be deliv­ered, and she gave birth to her firstborn son. The Lord is said to be her firstborn not because we should believe that the blessed Mother of God had other children afterward, since it is well known that she and Joseph lived their whole lives together in chastity: but because he is rightly called the firstborn of those of whom John says: To as many as received him he gave power to become children of God. Among these children he naturally holds the first place, since even before his birth as a human being he had an eternal birth as the Son of God. He came down to earth, shared in our nature, and gave us a share in his grace, so that he might be, as the apostle says, the first-born of a large family.

And she wrapped him, says scripture, in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them at the inn. Beloved, this should make us' reflect upon our Redeemer's great condescension and say, each one of us, from the bottom of our hearts: How can I repay the Lord for all he has done for me? For he of whom we rightly sing: Great is the Lord and worthy of all praise: his greatness cannot be measured has for us been born as a small child so that we who were small might through rebirth become great or in other words, so that we who were sinners might become righteous. He who is seated in heaven at the right hand of God the Father went without a room at the inn in order to give us many joyful rooms in the house of his Father. He who has adorned with great diversity every creature, whether invisible in the heavens or visible upon earth, and in his state of majesty is himself, as the prophet says, wrapped in light as in a robe when he assumed, our weakness covered with poor clothes in order to restore the best robe to us, or in other words, to give us back again, in his mercy, the immortality we had received in our first parent. He through whom all things were made wished his hands and feet, indeed the whole body he had assumed to be wrapped in swaddling clothes, in order to dispose our hands to do good works, to guide our feet into the ways of peace, and to consecrate every part of our bodies to God's service. He whom all the heavens cannot contain was confined in a poor little manger in order to confer upon us the spaciousness of heavenly habitations. And it was surely in to­ken of a special mystery that he chose to be born in a stable where animals come to feed, for thus he already gave us to un­derstand that all believers were to be fed at the holy table where these same mysteries of his incarnation would be celebrated.

Responsorv

O king of heaven - what strange honors are paid to you! +You contain the whole world, yet you are lodged in a stable.

V. You reign in the heavens, yet you lie in a manger. + You contain the ...