Christmas Day.
The Threefold Birth of Christ.
" Who shall declare His generation?" — Isa. liii. 8.
SYNOPSIS.
Ex.: Masses signify: I. Carnal. II. Spiritual. III. Eternal birth.
I. Eternal birth : i. Ineffable. 2. Pagans, and St. Paul. 3. St. John, chap. i.
II. Carnal birth: 1. Prodigies, paradoxes, and Eliseus. 2. God born of a Virgin. 3. Man's methods and God's.
III. Spiritual birth : 1. Grace appeared. 2. To all. 3. Signs of its presence.
Per. : Exhortation to go over (from world) to Bethlehem.
SERMON.
Brethren, why is it that on Christmas day, and on Christmas day only, the Church permits each priest to celebrate three Masses? She wishes, thereby, to fittingly honor Christ's threefold birth; His birth in eternity from the bosom of the Father; His birth in time from the womb of His Mother; His subsequent births innumerable, without intervention of Father or Mother, in regenerated and converted souls. The first, the midnight Mass, typifies His birth in Bethlehem, when spiritual darkness enveloped all and men slept the sleep of sin. The Mass of the aurora glorifies His first spiritual birth — the dawn of Christian truth in the minds and hearts of the shepherds; and His divine birth, though first in order, yet known to us only through His temporal and spiritual coming — His
