Christian, Remember
Your Dignity
No one is shut
out from this joy; all share the same reason for rejoicing. Our Lord, victor
over sin and death, finding no man free from sin, came to free us all. Let the
saint rejoice as he sees the palm of victory at hand. Let the sinner be glad as
he receives the offer of forgiveness. Let the pagan take courage as he is
summoned to life.
In the fullness
of time, chosen in the unfathomable depths of God’s wisdom, the Son of God took
for himself our common humanity in order to reconcile it with its creator. He
came to overthrow the devil, the origin of death, in that very nature by which
he had overthrown mankind.
And so at the
birth of our Lord the angels sing in joy: Glory to God in the highest,
and they proclaim peace to men of good will as they see the heavenly
Jerusalem being built from all the nations of the world. When the angels on
high are so exultant at this marvellous work of God’s goodness, what joy should
it not bring to the lowly hearts of men?
Beloved, let us
give thanks to God the Father, through his Son, in the Holy Spirit, because in
his great love for us he took pity on us, and when we were dead in our sins
he brought us to life with Christ, so that in him we might be a new
creation. Let us throw off our old nature and all its ways and, as we have come
to birth in Christ, let us renounce the works of the flesh.
Christian,
remember your dignity, and now that you share in God’s own nature, do not
return by sin to your former base condition. Bear in mind who is your head and
of whose body you are a member. Do not forget that you have been rescued from
the power of darkness and brought into the light of God’s kingdom.
Through the
sacrament of baptism you have become a temple of the Holy Spirit. Do not drive
away so great a guest by evil conduct and become again a slave to the devil,
for your liberty was bought by the blood of Christ.
Source:
The Liturgy of the Hours – Office of Readings
From
A sermon of Pope St Leo the Great
Image taken from Wikimedia Commons
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