marymajor's Advent Calendar: December 10

December 10


Last Sunday I spoke, I trust fully and sufficiently, of how, prepared and becomingly adorned, we should greet the Natal Day of the Lord, and observe in a worthy manner the coming festival. To observe the festival I repeat, so that though the day's solemnity may pass, the joy of its sanctifying grace may abide.

For this is the special grace of the Lord's Birth Day, that while it goes on to all who in the future will receive it, it still remains with the devout souls to whom it was already given. Let us then be made clean in holiness, clothed in modesty, worthy in heart; and the nearer we approach the festival, the more circumspectly let us walk.

- St. Maximus