Saturday, January 4 : Saint Proclus of Constantinople
Let all nature vibrate with joy and the whole human race exult, since women are themselves now honoured. Let all humanity dance in unison…: “where sin increased, grace overflowed all the more,” (Rom 5,20). The holy Mother of God has brought us together in this place; the Virgin Mary, purest treasure of virginity, the Second Adam’s spiritual paradise, place in which the two natures are united, place of exchange in which our salvation has been brought to pass, nuptial chamber in which Christ espoused our flesh. She is that spiritual bush which the fire of giving birth to a God did not burn, the bright cloud who bore him who is enthroned above the cherubim, the pure fleece that received celestial dew… Mary, handmaid and mother, virgin, heaven, the one bridge between God and man, loom of the incarnation on which the tunic of the union of natures was so skilfully woven, its weaver being the Holy Spirit. In his goodness, God did not disdain to be born of a woman, even though he who was to be formed by it was life in himself,. Yet if this mother had not remained a virgin, her childbearing would have had nothing extraordinary about it; then it would have been no more than a human being who was born. But since, after childbearing, she remained a virgin, how could it not point towards God and to an inexpressible mystery? He was born ineffably, without stain; he who, later on, would enter every closed door without hindrance and before whom Thomas would cry out as he beheld the union of two natures: “My Lord and my God,” (Jn 20,28). For love of us he who, by nature, could not suffer, was exposed to numberless sufferings. For Christ did not at all become God by degrees – absolutely not! But, being God, his mercy forced him to become man, as our faith teaches us. We do not preach a man become God but proclaim a God made flesh. To him was given as mother his own handmaid, to him who, by nature, was without mother and who became incarnate in time without a father.
Roman Extraordinary (Tridentine) Daily Readings – rosary,team
