Categories: hymns, feast-days, spiritual-writings
Date: 24 December 2008 20:16:09
May God bless you all with peace, joy and comfort at this most wonderful Feast of the Nativity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ [otherwise known as Christmas]. Some lines from a hymn on the Nativity by St Ephrem the Syrian to celebrate this joyous Feast.
Christ is Born! Glorify Him!
Hymn 23
...
Since human hope was shattered, hope was increased by Your birth.
The heavenly beings announced good hope to human beings.
Satan, who cut off our hope, cut off his hope by his [own] hands
when he saw that hope increased. Your birth became for the hopeless
a spring gushing hope. Blessed is the hope that brought the Gospel!
Glory to You utterly from us all!
Your birthday resembles You, being, like You, desirable and lovable.
Without having seen Your birth, we love it as if in its time.
On Your day we see You just as when You were a babe,
beloved of everyone. Behold the churches rejoice in it.
Your day adorns and is adorned. Blessed is the day that came to be for our sake.
Glory to You utterly from us all!
Your day gave us a gift like which the Father has no other.
It was not the Seraphim He sent us, nor the Cherubim came down to us.
Nor did attending Watchers come, but the First-born is attended.
Who is able to give thanks that Majesty without measure
is lying despised in a manger? Blessed is He Who gave us all that He gained!
Glory to You utterly from us all!
...
strophes 6-8, Hymn 23, pp. 188-189, Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns [Classics of Western Spirituality], McVey K. E., 1989, Paulist Press, New Jersey