Image 1 of 1: The Nativity, Federico Barocci, Museo del Prado
Saints and feasts
The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ
Commonly Called Christmas Day
Christmas Day is kept first as the birth at Bethlehem, then as the meaning of it. It is full of wonder, humility, and gratitude.
The reading
ⓘ Butler source
Butler's Lives of the Saints, Volume IV (October-November-December), December 25, The Birthday of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Commonly Called Christmas Day, Christian Classics 1990, pp. 607-611.
Christmas is treated not as a biography of one saint but as the Church's solemn remembrance of the birth of Jesus Christ for the redemption of mankind. The account covers Bethlehem, the crowded lodging, the stable and manger, the angelic message to the shepherds, and their adoration of the newborn Saviour.
It then turns from narration to meaning: the crib as Christ's first pulpit, the swaddling clothes and manger as a lesson in humility, and the whole mystery of the Incarnation as God's answer to human pride and misery. The exact historical day of Christ's birth is uncertain; December 25 became the feast through a development that can be traced, and the Church's three Christmas Masses grew from both liturgical history and spiritual meaning.
Historical note
December 25 is presented here as a feast, not as an ordinary saint's life.
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Christmas Novena I (St. Andrew Novena)
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Novena to the Infant Jesus
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Read the Beatitudes in Matthew 5