Christmas Day: 'There is nothing, not anything, in heaven or earth left out'

On this feast of Our Lord's Nativity, an extract from Lancelot Andrewes' sermon for Christmas Day 1623, on the text 'That in the dispensations of the fulness of times, He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in Heaven and which are on earth even in Him' (Ephesians 1:10). Here Andrewes, in a richly patristic fashion, sets forth the recapitulation of all things in the Incarnate Word, the recapitulation in which we participate through the Eucharist, in anticipation of the "merry joyful feast" that will be the renewal of all things.

As we confess the Incarnation of the Word, receive the Holy Mysteries, and celebrate this day and season with joy, Andrewes provides a beautiful, powerful meditation on our salvation:

All in heaven recapitulate into One, that is God; all in earth recapitulate into one, that is man. Gather these two now, and all are gathered, all the things in either. And now at this last great recollection of God and man, and in them of Heaven and earth, and in them of all in Heaven and earth, are all recapitulate into the unity of One entire Person ... So the gathering nearer than before, so surer than before, so every way better than before ... Gather God and [man] into one, and so you have all. There is nothing, not anything, in heaven or earth left out. Heaven is in and earth, the creatures in Heaven and earth, the Creator of Heaven and earth. All are in now; all reconciled, as it were, in one mass, all cast into one sum; recapitulated indeed truly and properly ...

For there we do not gather to Christ or of Christ, but we gather Christ Himself; and gathering Him we shall gather the tree and fruit and all upon it. For as there is a recapitulation of all in heaven and earth in Christ, so there is a recapitulation of all in Christ in the holy Sacrament ...

And as to gather us to God, so likewise each to other mutually, expressed lively in the symbols of many grains into the one, and many grapes into the other. The Apostle is plain that we are all 'one bread and one body, so many as are partakers of one bread,' so moulding us as it were into one loaf altogether. The gathering to God refers still to things in Heaven, this other to men to the things in earth here. All under one head by the common faith; all into one body mystical by mutual charity. So shall we well enter into the dispensing of this season, to begin with.

And even thus to be recollected at this feast by the Holy Communion into that blessed union, is the highest perfection we can in this life aspire unto. We then are at the highest pitch, at the very best we shall ever attain to on earth, what time we newly come from it; gathered to Christ, and by Christ to God; stated in all whatsoever He has gathered here laid up against His next coming. With which gathering here in this world we must content and stay ourselves, and wait for the consummation of all at His coming again. For there is an ecce venio yet to come.

This gathering thus here begun, it is to take end and to have the full accomplishment at the last and great gathering of all, which will be of the quick and of the dead. When He will 'send His Angels, and they will gather His elect from all the corners of the earth,' will 'gather the wheat into the barn, and the tares to the fire.' And then, and never till then, will be the fullness indeed, when God will be not, as now He is, somewhat in every one, but 'all in all'. Et tempus non erit amplius, 'and there will be neither time, nor season anymore.' No fulness then but the fullness of eternity, and in it the fullness of all joy. To which, in the several seasons of our being 'gathered to our fathers,' He vouchsafe to bring us; that as the year, so the fulness of our lives may end in a Christmas, a merry joyful feast, as that is.

(The icon of the Nativity is by Greta Leśko.)

After a festive break, laudable Practice will return on 5th January.

Merry Christmas to all readers.

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