COLLECT
Deus, qui beatum Petrum Chrysologum episcopum Verbi tui incarnati praeconem egregium effecisti, eius nobis intercessione concede, ut tuae salutis mysteria et iugiter scrutemur in corde, et fideliter significemus in opere.
O God, who made the Bishop Saint Peter Chrysologus
an outstanding preacher of your Incarnate Word,
grant, through his intercession,
that we may constantly ponder in our hearts
the mysteries of your salvation
and faithfully express them in what we do.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.
FIRST READINGEphesians 3:8-12
Brothers and sisters:
To me, the very least of all the holy ones, this grace was given,
to preach to the Gentiles the inscrutable riches of Christ,
and to bring to light for all what is the plan of the mystery
hidden from ages past in God who created all things,
so that the manifold wisdom of God
might now be made known through the Church
to the principalities and authorities in the heavens.
This was according to the eternal purpose
that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord,
in whom we have boldness of speech
and confidence of access through faith in him.
RESPONSORIAL PSALM119:9,10,11,12,13,14 R. (12) Lord, teach me your statutes.
How shall a young man be faultless in his way?
By keeping to your words. R. Lord, teach me your statutes.
With all my heart I seek you;
let me not stray from your commands. R. Lord, teach me your statutes.
Within my heart I treasure your promise,
that I may not sin against you. R. Lord, teach me your statutes.
Blessed are you, O LORD;
teach me your statutes. R. Lord, teach me your statutes.
With my lips I declare
all the ordinances of your mouth. R. Lord, teach me your statutes.
In the way of your decrees I rejoice,
as much as in all riches. R. Lord, teach me your statutes.
ALLELUIAJn 15:5
Ego sum vitis, vos palmite, dicit Dominus, qui manet in me, et ego in eo, hic fert fructum multum.
I am the vine, you are the branches, says the Lord;
whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit.
GOSPEL Luke 6:43-45
Jesus said to his disciples:
"A good tree does not bear rotten fruit,
nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit.
For every tree is known by its own fruit.
For people do not pick figs from thornbushes,
nor do they gather grapes from brambles.
A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good,
but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil;
for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks."
From a sermon by Saint Peter Chrysologus, bishop
(Sermo 148: PL 52, 596-598)
The Incarnation and Human Dignity
A virgin conceived, bore a son, and yet remained a virgin. This is no common occurrence, but a sign; no reason here, but God’s power, for he is the cause, and not nature. It is a special event, not shared by others; it is divine, not human. Christ’s birth was not necessity, but an expression of omnipotence, a sacrament of piety for the redemption of men. He who made man without generation from pure clay made man again and was born from a pure body. The hand that assumed clay to make our flesh deigned to assume a body for our salvation. That the Creator is in his creature and God is in the flesh brings dignity to man without dishonor to him who made him.
Why then, man, are you so worthless in your own eyes and yet so precious to God? Why render yourself such dishonor when you are honored by him? Why do you ask how you were created and do not seek to know why you were made? Was not this entire visible universe made for your dwelling? It was for you that the light dispelled the overshadowing gloom; for your sake was the night regulated and the day measured, and for you were the heavens embellished with the varying brilliance of the sun, the moon and the stars. The earth was adorned with flowers, groves and fruit; and the constant marvellous variety of lovely living things was created in the air, the fields, and the seas for you, lest sad solitude destroy the joy of God’s new creation. And the Creator still works to devise things that can add to your glory. He has made you in his image that you might in your person make the invisible Creator present on earth; he has made you his legate, so that the vast empire of the world might have the Lord’s representative. Then in his mercy God assumed what he made in you; he wanted now to be truly manifest in man, just as he had wished to be revealed in man as in an image. Now he would be in reality what he had submitted to be in symbol.
And so Christ is born that by his birth he might restore our nature. He became a child, was fed, and grew that he might inaugurate the one perfect age to remain for ever as he had created it. He supports man that man might no longer fall. And the creature he had formed of earth he now makes heavenly; and what he had endowed with a human soul he now vivifies to become a heavenly spirit. In this way he fully raised man to God, and left in him neither sin, nor death, nor travail, nor pain, nor anything earthly, with the grace of our Lord Christ Jesus, who lives and reigns with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, now and for ever, for all the ages of eternity. Amen.
RESPONSORY1 Peter 2:4,5; Psalm 118:22
Come near to Christ, the living stone;
- you too must be living stones, built up in him.
Jesus is the stone which has become the cornerstone.
- You too must be living stones, built up in him.
PRAYER
Father,
you made Peter Chrysologus
an outstanding preacher of your incarnate Word.
May the prayers of St. Peter help us to cherish
the mystery of our salvation
and make its meaning clear in our love for others.
Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.