Saint Leo the Great on the Incarnation

The Solemnity of the Annunciation is observed today, transferred from 25 March because of Good Friday. The second reading of Matins today is from Pope St. Leo the Great. Reading some of his writings for patrology last semester, I gained an appreciation for the style in which he expresses the dogmas of the incarnation and hypostatic union with great clarity within his theological subtlety, an art I am gaining appreciation for as I struggle to write papers and exams on the Trinity this semester. 

Second reading

From a letter by Saint Leo the Great, pope

The mystery of man’s reconciliation with God

Lowliness is assured by majesty, weakness by power, mortality by eternity. To pay the debt of our sinful state, a nature that was incapable of suffering was joined to one that could suffer. Thus, in keeping with the healing that we needed, one and the same mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ, was able to die in one nature, and unable to die in the other.

He who is true God was therefore born in the complete and perfect nature of a true man, whole in his own nature, whole in ours. By our nature we mean what the Creator had fashioned in us from the beginning, and took to himself in order to restore it.

For in the Savior there was no trace of what the deceiver introduced and man, being misled, allowed to enter. It does not follow that because he submitted to sharing in our human weakness he therefore shared in our sins.

He took the nature of a servant without stain of sin, enlarging our humanity without diminishing his divinity. He emptied himself; though invisible he made himself visible, though Creator and Lord of all things he chose to be one of us mortal men. Yet this was the condescension of compassion, not the loss of omnipotence. So he who in the nature of God had created man, became in the nature of a servant, man himself.

Thus the Son of God enters this lowly world. He comes down from the throne of heaven, yet does not separate himself from the Father’s glory. He is born in a new condition, by a new birth.

He was born in a new condition, for, invisible in his own nature, he became visible in ours. Beyond our grasp, he chose to come within our grasp. Existing before time began, he began to exist at a moment in time. Lord of the universe, he hid his infinite glory and took the nature of a servant. Incapable of suffering as God, he did not refuse to be a man, capable of suffering. Immortal, he chose to be subject to the laws of death.

He who is true God is also true man. There is no falsehood in this unity as long as the lowliness of man and the pre-eminence of God coexist in mutual relationship.

As God does not change by his condescension, so man is not swallowed up by being exalted. Each nature exercises its own activity, in communion with the other. The Word does what is proper to the Word, the flesh fulfills what is proper to the flesh.

One nature is resplendent with miracles, the other falls victim to injuries. As the Word does not lose equality with the Father’s glory, so the flesh does not leave behind the nature of our race.

One and the same person — this must be said over and over again — is truly the Son of God and truly the son of man. He is God in virtue of the fact that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He is man in virtue of the fact that the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.

Good Annunciation Friday

What does the date of Christmas have to do with Good Friday? Good Friday is the reason that Christmas is observed on December 25.

There are many popular explanations for why Christmas is on December 25. These are mostly modern revisionist attempts to explain away the significance of Christian holy days and generally relate to supposed attempts to suppress or appropriate earlier pagan practices. For example, Christmas was supposedly meant to replace Saturnalia, but this Roman bacchanal began on December 17 and never extended later than December 23. Another popular myth propagated by Bill Maher in his "mockumentary" Religulous is that attempts to suppress the cult of Sol Invictus was the reason for fixing the date, but this is hard to believe because the cult of Sol Invictus dates from the late third century, well after Christmas was fixed, and Sol Invictus was on the day of the solstice, which is not December 25.

The reason for Christmas on December 25 is the date of Easter. Methods used to calculate the date of Easter in the early Church varied; some continued to observe 14 Nisan as the date of Easter based on the Jewish Passover feast whether or not it fell on a Sunday; in parts of the west such as Gaul, the date of Easter was fixed on March 27, a practice that continued right up to the 6th century, and therefore Good Friday was March 25. If you are aware of the temporal cycle of the Church's calendar, you probably know March 25 as the day that the Solemnity of the Annunciation is observed, and this is not by accident; a common belied in the ancient world was that a great man's date of death coincided with that of his birth or conception. The Fathers of the western Church used this common belief when they established March 25 as the date of commemoration for both the conception and death of Jesus.

There was a different method of calculation used in the east, but despite that the dates agree and March 25 and December 25 are also observed in the Byzantine Churches (although the Orthodox retain the Julian Calendar which is now 12 days behind). The reasoning was more theological: it was held that the day of the new creation (Resurrection) corresponded to the date of the first creation, and these also shared the date of the Incarnation. The understanding was that there is an inextricable connection between all the mysteries of salvation, beginning with creation and including all the mysteries of Christ. Therefore it was natural to celebrate the new creation annually with its cardinal mysteries of the Incarnation and Resurrection. (See Ratzinger, Spirit of the Liturgy, 106).

It is obvious that December is nine months after March, but what I learned in Patristics class last semester is that the date of birth was figured from the date of conception, not the other way around as the importance assumed by the second holy day in contemporary public awareness might have led me to assume.

Resurrection and Annunciation, details from opposite doors of the Isenheim Altarpiece, Matthias Grünewald, 1515.

This connection  between the feasts was lost later when the calculation of Easter was standardized for the most part (the calculation long continued to vary, not being fixed by a council until Nicaea in 325, which also explains the ancient Armenian observance of the Nativity and Theophany on 6 January because of a different Easter dating). Another reason the connection is lost is the later change that when 25 March falls within Holy Week, the Solemnity of the Annunciation is transferred to the second Monday of Easter. This preserves it as a separate celebration, which only makes sense if it is seen separately.

The Fathers of the Church intended that the whole mystery of Christ from Incarnation to Pasch be celebrated together and that they be seen as inextricably connected. Although this connection has been lost in all but historical record, the two coincide (at least formally) a few times a century when Easter falls on 27 March*, a unique occasion, especially in this Jubilee of Mercy, to reflect on the unity of history in Christ who makes all things new.

*This actually happened twice recently, 2005 and 2016, and will not recur until year 2157.