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The Season of Advent: The Birth of the Messiah
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The Birth of the Messiah: Mary and the Mystery of Christmas by Dr. Brant Pitre
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Welcome, everyone, to our Advent Bible Conference here at the Augustine Institute. My name is Dr. Brant Petrie. I am a professor of Sacred Scripture here at the Augustine Institute. And I'm very happy to be with you to share this presentation, which is entitled the Birth of the Mary and the Mystery of Christmas. So I just want to dive in with two points that we're all familiar with. The first thing I want to start by saying is that every Sunday at Mass, we as Catholics profess the Creed. We say the Nicene Creed, right? And we say that we not only believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, but that we also profess that for us men and for our salvation, he came down from heaven and by the power of the Holy Spirit, was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became man. And you may have noticed at that point, when we say the Creed, we actually bow. We're supposed to bow in honor of the mystery of the Incarnation, of the mystery of Jesus becoming incarnate of the Virgin Mary. The second point I'd like to begin with is calling to mind the fact that not only every week in the Creed does the Church point us to the mystery of Mary's virginal motherhood, but every year at Christmas time, we celebrate the birth of Christ with lots of hymns. One of my favorites in particular is Silent Night, right? And that famous hymn, Silent Night focuses on, again, the Virgin Mary. You have the famous line, silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright around the Virgin mother and her child. So the question that I want to open this presentation with is it's a simple one. It might even seem an obvious one, or not one worth asking for people who have maybe grown up Christian or cradle Catholic. But why the virgin birth? Why does the virginal conception and birth of Christ matter? What light does the virginity of Mary shed on the mystery of Christmas? Why is it important, in other words, that the Christ, the Christos, the anointed one, the Messiah, be born of a virgin? It's obviously something we emphasize when we say the Creed. It's something we call to mind every year when we celebrate Christmas. It's something we invite, emphasize every time we talk about Mary. And we single her out from every other woman by saying the Virgin Mary or the Blessed Virgin Mary. But what's the deeper meaning of the virginal conception and birth of Christ? And what implications does it have for us as we prepare during Advent for the celebration of the Nativity of Christ, right, of his birth from his Virgin mother? So that's the question I want to ask in order to Answer it. What I want to do is we're going to walk through some key passages, the Scriptures regarding the virgin birth, especially texts that are going to appear very frequently in the lectionary during the season of Advent and the season of Christmas. Now, these will be familiar passages, but I want to try to look at them through the lens of what Jewish people in the first century were waiting for, what Mary herself might have been waiting for and pondering as a first century Jewish woman, reading the Scriptures and waiting for the coming of the Messiah. And then also what the implications of the answers to those questions are for us today as Christians who are preparing for the season of the Nativity, for the season of Christmas, through the season of Advent, and trying to put ourselves in a sense in the place of those ancient Jewish people who were themselves preparing now for the second Advent, but for the first Advent, the advent of the Messiah, what were they waiting for? And why does it matter that it took place in Christ through Mary? Okay, now before I get in any deeper into this topic, I just want to make a point here. When people talk about the virgin birth, they often are a little ambiguous about it. They can mean two different things. They can mean the virginal conception of Jesus by Mary at the Annunciation, or the miraculous virginal birth of Jesus on Christmas itself. I'm going to focus here primarily on the virginal conception of Christ. If you want more on the miraculous birth of Jesus, you can take a look at my book, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary. I've got a whole chapter in there where I get into the second aspect of that mystery of the birth of Jesus. But trust me, the virginal conception will take up plenty of time. We're going to fill up our time just by looking at that. But I want to focus on that because this is a very crucial point that the Church calls to mind in the Creed and in our hymns and celebration at the Christmas season. So without any further ado, the first passage, the main passage I want to focus on from the Gospels that tells us about the virgin birth of Christ is from Matthew, chapter one, verses 18 through 23. So if you open up the Gospel of Matthew to chapter one, this is what it says. And again, you know this text, it's very familiar to many of you, not all of you, but listen to it again. And I want you to try to read it like a first century Jew, using the scriptures of Israel as the background. Alright? So it says this. Now, the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way when his mother Mary had been Betrothed to Joseph before they came together, she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to send her away quietly. But as he considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. Now, all this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet. Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Immanuel, which means God with us. All right, okay, so stop there. Take a break. There's a lot of things we could talk about here, just a few highlights I want to point to. First, notice the first line there. The birth of Jesus Christ. The Greek word there for Christ, as you probably have heard, but just in case you have it, is Christos. It literally means anointed one. And it is simply the Greek translation of the Hebrew word Mashiach, from which we get the English Messiah. So you can actually translate this. Now, the birth of Jesus, the Messiah, took place in this way. So Matthew, who's writing his gospel for a Jewish audience, very emphatic about the fact that Jesus isn't just the Savior, he's the Mashiach, he's the Messiah. And he's telling you how the birth of the Messiah took place. So that's the first point. The second point is the virginal conception. So it says that Mary was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit. So this is a miraculous conception foundation through the power of the Holy Spirit of God. And once again, as my good friend, Dr. John Bergsman makes clear in his book on Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls, the language of the Holy Spirit is something that would have been familiar to Jews in the first century, not just from the scriptures that talks about the Spirit of God, but also in other Jewish writings outside the Bible, like the Dead Sea Scrolls, that contain references to the Holy Spirit or the spirit of holiness of God. So anybody reading this text would realize that what Matthew was talking about here is a miraculous conception by Mary, apart from the intervention of any man through the power of the Holy Spirit. Now, at this point, her husband Joseph, when he recognizes what has taken place, it says, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to send her away quietly. Right now, we don't have time to get into the whole reason why Joseph is deciding what he wants to do here or what he's doing. Exactly all that. But for now, the main point is that he is taken aback by the revelation of her having conceived the child through the power of the Holy Spirit. He's perplexed, and he decides to divorce her quietly. And as he's pondering doing this, an angel appears to him, says in his dream, Joseph, don't fear to take Mary a wife, because that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. So the angel confirms the miraculous nature of his conception and declares that she's going to bear a son and Joseph's going to call his name, Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. Now, two things stand out here that are worth highlighting. First, notice it says that her husband, Joseph. This is important. Although Joseph and Mary are only betrothed, right? That's what it says. They are legally married according to ancient Jewish law. Sometimes during the Christmas season, you'll hear preachers talk about, you know, Mary was an unwed mother. They'll say these kind of things. You know, that's. That's actually just false. That's not correct. Mary is married, but she's married to Joseph. She just hasn't moved in with him yet. Consummated the marriage through the wedding celebration. In Judaism, there would be a betrothal period where you'd be legally married for about a year, and then that would come to its consummation. Once the husband had built a home for his wife, then there would be a great wedding celebration. They would come together and consummate the marriage. So Joseph hasn't yet brought Mary into his home. They are legally married, right? And yet she's conceived before the wedding. And that therein lies the difficulty. So the angel says to him, what has taken place? Well, actually, it's not clear. It could be Matthew telling you, or it could be the angel telling Joseph, or a little bit of both. But it says all this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken through the prophet. And here it quotes the key text we're going to look at, which is from the prophet. Isaiah, chapter 7, verse 14. Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Immanuel. So Matthew here is making clear to his readers that the virginal conception of Jesus isn't just a miracle. It is a fulfillment of prophecy. Right now, many of us we're reading this text would just be content to stop there, right? But it's so crucial we go back and look at what prophecy Matthew was pointing us to as being fulfilled and what it says in context. So if we go back to Isaiah, chapter seven, this is a famous prophecy of the sign that is promised by God to King Ahaz, right? This is centuries and centuries before the time of Jesus. Isaiah is the 8th century prophet, right? So, you know, more than 700 years before Christ, you have this prophecy where Isaiah is speaking to the king of Israel and he's afraid. The king of Israel is afraid because of foreign powers that are rising up and that are exerting their power over Israel, threatening to conquer Judah. And so he's afraid. And in the context of that conflict and fear, God speaks to Ahaz through the prophet and says to him, don't be afraid. Ask any sign you want of my providence, and I'll give it to you. And this is what happens. Isaiah, chapter 7, verse 10:14. Again, the Lord spoke to Ahaz. Ask a sign of the Lord your God. Let it be as deep as Sheol. That's the realm of the dead, or as high as heaven. But Ahaz says, I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test. And he said, hear then, O house of David. Is it too little for you to weary men that you weary my God also? Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold. And I'll just say the Hebrew word here, because I'm going to come back to it in a second. An Alma, or the Alma, shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel. Right, Immanuel, which in Hebrew means God with us. The Hebrew word God is El Imanu means with us. So God is with us all. Right, now pause there. I think most of us, when we look at that verse, if we go back, if we look at it at all, we tend to just focus on the verse that says, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel. Okay, there's the prophecy. Now, Jesus fulfills it. But when we put it in context and we look at it in its original Hebrew language, a few questions arise, a few difficulties arise. The primary one being that in some translations, you may have noticed that the word alma in Hebrew is actually not translated as virgin. It's translated as a young woman. So you'll see this in different versions of the Old Testament. So, like the Revised Standard Version will say, a young woman will be with child, whereas the older traditional translations, like the King James, will say, behold, a virgin shall be with child and bear a son. And so the question for our purposes here is, well, what is it? What does it actually say? What does the Hebrew text say and what more importantly did it mean? Right, so we'll need to do a little, a little language here, a little linguistic background. This is important, a little Greek, little Hebrew, just to study God's word, to go into more depth so we can understand what we're proclaiming at Christmas time. So the first point we want to highlight here is that in Isaiah 7:14 it literally says in Hebrew, behold, a Alma shall conceive and bear a son. Now alma is not the standard Hebrew word for a virgin, that is a young, a woman who has not had relations with a man, has not had marital relations with a man. The standard Hebrew word for virgin is Bethulah. Bethulah in Hebrew is always translated. Whenever it's translated into, like ancient Greek, for example, it's always translated by the Greek word parthenos, which means virgin, a woman, a girl who has not had marital relations with a man. Now this standard word for virgin is not used in Isaiah 7:14, but the word alma is. So it's not Bethulah, but Alma. Now what does the word alma mean? There have been countless books written about this, monographs, articles, so much debate going back for centuries actually. So we can't go into all the details right now. If you want a fuller treatment, you can check out the section on Isaiah in a book that I wrote called Catholic Introduction to the Bible, the Old Testament. I co authored this with John Bergs, he's a principal author, I'm a secondary author. But we wrote it together and we have a section there that goes in way more depth than I can do right now. For now, the upshot is this. When Isaiah says that an Alma will conceive and bear a child, the word alma is an interesting term. It's never used for a married woman on the one hand, right, so it could connote virginity. On the other hand, it tends to put the emphasis more on the age of the woman being young, rather than an absence of having consummated a marriage or absence of marital activity or having known a man. So the word Bethulah in Hebrew. Sorry, going too fast. Slow down, Brant. The word Alma, sorry, in Hebrew that's here in Isaiah 7:14 is usually translated by the Greek word neones, which means a young woman. So you can hear the difference, right? It puts the emphasis on her age rather than her, so to speak, her status as a virgin. Alright, so. And you can see that in various passages, such as Exodus 2, 8, Psalm 68, 26, Proverbs 30, 19, etc. So if you're going through the Old Testament, usually when you would come across the word alma, it would get translated as neones, right? As a young girl or a young woman. Except in two cases. There are two cases. The ancient Greek translation of the Scriptures known as the Septuagint, right? Ancient Jewish translation, where neones is not the word in which it's translated, but rather alma is translated as parthenos or virgin. And those two cases involve situations where the virginity of the woman in question seems to be implied or even explicit. So for example, the first example of this is the story of Rebecca in Genesis chapter 24, verse 16 and 43. Rebecca in Hebrew is called both a bethulah, a virgin, and an alma, a young woman. Right? But when the second one occurs, alma, it's translated as virgin parthenos. Because earlier in Genesis 24, it explicitly says that Rebekah had not known a man. So when her virginity is explicit, the word alma isn't translated just as young woman, it gets translated as virgin parthenos. Now the second example is the prophecy of Immanuel in the Book of Isaiah. So in this case, the Hebrew word alma, which means young woman, right, Was translated not just by Christians, but by ancient Jewish translators of the book of Isaiah in the translation known as the Septuagint. Right? It's a couple centuries, about 200 years before the time of Christ, 250 years. There's lots of debates about the exact dating the Septuagint, but it's a couple centuries before the time of Jesus. Jewish translators translated the word not just as connoting a young woman, but as actually denoting a virgin, the word parthenos, right? Now the question is why? Why did they do that? Okay, on the one hand, it is true that the verb that the word alma in Hebrew can just mean a young woman. However. However, because it's never used of a married woman and because it tends to imply virginity, it seems that the ancient Jewish translators of Septuagint saw something in the context of Isaiah 7 that implied that this wasn't just any young woman, but a virgin, right? A parthenos, a virgin. Okay. Which by the way, let me just quick side note here, you might be thinking this whole time, well, is there a better word in English to translate the word alma, right? Than virgin, which is explicit about virginity, or young woman, which is open ended? And I actually think there is one. The word would be maiden, right? It's a little archaic but in English, we use the word maiden to refer to a young woman, and it tends to connote virginity rather than denote virginity. Right. Like maids of honor. Right. Are supposed to be the virgins to the virgin bride. That's the connotation of the terminology. So in this instance, it seems like even ancient Jewish interpreters saw this figure in Isaiah 7 as a virgin who would conceive and bear. Immanuel means God with us now. All right, now, it is true that if you keep reading the context of Isaiah chapter 7, there are some reasons to think that this prophecy is ambiguous and that it could have been filled in a kind of preliminary way in the life of King Hezekiah, right? Who actually saw the overthrow of some of these enemies that were facing King Ahaz during his lifetime. However, at the same time, if you keep reading in Isaiah chapter seven and you go to chapter eight and you look at chapter nine, you read the context, you'll see that not everything about this future child king could have been fulfilled in Hezekiah. It seems to point beyond Hezekiah to a future king who will be not just greater than Hezekiah, but who can even be described as divine. Listen to this. In Isaiah chapter 9, verse 6 to 7, there's another prophecy in what scholars call the Book of Emmanuel, which is Isaiah 7 and 8 and 9. And in chapter 9, in context, listen to this prophecy of a child who's coming. And I quote, this should sound familiar if you've heard Handel's Messiah. For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given. And the government will be upon his shoulders. And his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, same Hebrew word here, El, everlasting Father, Prince of peace. And of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end upon the throne of David, and over his kingdom to establish it and uphold it with justice and righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. Isaiah 9, 6, 7. So notice, what does this Emmanuel king look like here? He looks like a child king who can be called God to be described as divine, and whose kingdom will last forever. It will never be destroyed. Such could certainly not be said of King Hezekiah, because King David's kingdom was in tatters and ruins by the 6th century BC at the time of the Babylonian exile. And it's this reason that Matthew, I think, points his Jewish readers to Isaiah 7, 14, right, and tells them the prophecy there of a Parthenos, a virgin who will conceive and bear a son, is literally fulfilled in the virginal Conception of Jesus the Christ, the Christos, the Messiah. By Mary of Nazareth. Right, by Mary, the spouse of Joseph. And you don't have to take my word for it. This is, of course, how the Church has always interpreted this verse in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Paragraph 497 says, and I quote, the Gospel accounts understand the virginal conception of Jesus as a divine work that surpasses all human understanding and possibility. That which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit, said the angel to Joseph. And Mary, said the angel to Joseph about Mary, his fiance. The Church sees here the fulfillment of the divine promise given through the prophet Isaiah. Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son. Isaiah 7:14. And you'll notice the catechism cites there, the lxx, that's the Septuagint, right? That Greek translation, ancient Jewish, Greek translation that Matthew is using that he's expecting his Greek readers to be familiar with and that uses the word virgin Parthenos to describe this great sign, this miraculous sign of God's being present with his people, which, by the way, one of the arguments for it being a actual virginal conception that goes all the way back to St. Jerome was when God says to Ahaz, ask for a sign as high as the heavens or as low as Sheol, he's talking about something miraculous, something wondrous, and just a young woman having a child is not going to be a sign that is as wondrous as God offers here. So that's how the church interprets Isaiah 7:14, and that's the biblical foundation for the doctrine of the virginal conception of Christ. All right, now, with that said, in closing, then, what are the implications of the virginal conception and the virgin birth for the celebration of Christmas as we prepare for the Advent? See, as we prepare in the Advent season for the season of Christmas and the Nativity, what's the upshot? Right? Why does this matter? Sometimes people will think, oh, well, you know, the virginal birth is kind of like an ancient mythological idea. You know, ancient Christians belong to, you know, a primitive society. They didn't have cell phones, they didn't have computers, they didn't have cameras. Right? And the technology we have, they didn't understand. So they would believe things like, you know, in virginal birth and miraculous events and things like that. Well, that's just not true. Right? Ancient people knew very well, for example, that virgins don't have babies and dead people stay dead as a rule. Those two examples here. So like the. The virginal conception of Jesus and the resurrection of Jesus from the dead were both greeted by pagan critics of Christianity with ridicule, right, because they understood the basic laws of nature, as we would call them. Nevertheless, the reason for the virgin birth is that it is a mystery. It points beyond itself to deeper truths, to profound truths. And I want to close with two of these. The first is the connection between the virgin birth and the mystery of Jesus divinity. Listen to the words of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Mary's virginity manifests God's absolute initiative in the Incarnation. Jesus has only God as Father. He is naturally son of the Father as to his divinity, and naturally Son of his Mother as to his humanity, but properly Son of the Father in both natures. Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 503. In other words, what the Catechism is saying here is that the first meaning of the mystery of the virgin birth is that it points us. It's a sign of his divinity. It's a sign that Jesus isn't just fully human, coming from a human mother, but that he's also fully divine, that he has only God as His Father, and therefore he shares His Father's divine nature. He's the natural Son of the Eternal Father. Right? And this is so crucial for us to realize because I've noticed over the years of teaching over and over and over again, whenever I read a scholar or I meet a student who doesn't believe in the virginity of Mary, the virgin birth, you can put money on the table that they also don't believe in the divinity of Christ and vice versa. Scholars or students that I've met who don't believe in the divinity of Christ every single time, they don't believe in the virginal conception, they don't believe in the virgin birth. The two go together. The virgin birth is a safeguard to the mystery of Christ's divinity, not just the fullness of his humanity, but the fullness of his divinity. Right? And sure enough, Saint Bede the Venerable, one of my favorite saints, an 8th century saint, in his homilies on the Gospels, he has a homily for the Advent season. That's how far this goes back. He actually talked about this in his comments on Mary. And listen what he says about Mary's understanding of the mystery of the Incarnation in light of Isaiah, I'm quoting Saint Bede said this quote. Mary saw that she had given birth in Bethlehem to the ruler of Israel who was born eternal from the Father God before the ages. She saw that she had conceived as a virgin, given birth to a son and called his name Jesus. She had read in the prophets, behold, a virgin shall conceive and give birth to a son, and his name will be called Immanuel. Isaiah 7:14. She then knew that the Lord had come in the flesh, whose power is one and eternal with the Father. Mary was comparing these things that she experienced which. I'm sorry. Mary was comparing these things which she had read were to occur with those which she recognized as already having occurred. Nevertheless, she did not bring these things forth from her mouth, but kept them closed up in her heart. Venerable Bead, homilies on the Gospel, number one, paragraph seven. Wow, listen. That so, I mean, I'm sure. I'm sure you've heard that hymn at Advent season. You know, Mary did. You know, right? It's a popular contemporary Christian song written by, I believe, a Protestant Christian. Anyway, so the song raises questions about what Mary knew. Well, Bede answers this. Did Mary know Jesus was divine? Absolutely. Of course she did. Why? Well, not only did the Holy Spirit tell her in the Annunciation that the child would be conceived of the power of the Holy Spirit and the Son of God. That's the first point, right? But the second point Bea brings up is that as a Jew, Mary would have read in the Scriptures and in the prophets about this mysterious virgin who would conceive and give birth to a son as an answer to the sign promised to Ahaz, whose name would be Emmanuel, God with us. And in her own experience of the virginal conception, she would recognize that that prophecy had been fulfilled in her and in her Son. That's what she was pondering in her heart, as Luke describes it. She's pondering the mystery of the fulfillment of Scripture in the nativity that took place and in the conception that took place in her virginal womb. If there was any doubt, if there was any ambiguity about the meaning of the Alma, Right, the maiden who would conceive and give birth In Isaiah, chapter 7:14, Mary's own experience of the virginal conception and birth of Christ lays that to rest and points to the fact that he isn't just fully human, he's also fully divine. And then second, and in closing, the final aspect of the virgin birth, the mystery that it points to, is the mystery of Christ's identity as the new Adam. Now, this one's really great, and I just want to share this with you real quick. Again, according to the catechism of the Catholic Church, it says, quote, second reason. Jesus is conceived by the Holy Spirit in the Virgin Mary's Womb, because he is the new Adam who inaugurates the new creation. The first man, Adam was from the earth, a man of dust. The second man, Jesus, is from heaven. First Corinthians 15. That's in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 504. You might be thinking, hold on a second. What, what does Christmas have to do with the new creation? What does the virgin birth have to do with Jesus as the new Adam? Well, as the catechism's teaching and as Scripture itself and the church fathers point out, sometimes Christians will say, oh, well, you know, Jesus is the only person ever conceived virginally. Right? And from one point of view, that's correct. But according to a biblical worldview, and certainly an ancient Jewish worldview, that's not actually the case. Because if you go back to the first book of the Old Testament, there are two other people who are conceived and created apart from the union of a man and a woman. And those two people are Adam, who's created from the dust of the earth, and then Eve, who's created from the flesh and bone of Adam's side. Right? So what the catechism saying here is that just as the miraculous conception or creation of Adam at the beginning of, of the old creation marks the inauguration of the old creation, so too the virginal miraculous conception of Jesus in the womb of Mary marks the beginning and the inauguration of a new creation. So the virgin birth is also a sign not only that Jesus divine, but that his mission isn't just to save people from their sins, but to transform the universe, to make it new again in Christ, to inaugurate a new creation. And you don't have to take my word for it. Again, you can take the word of St. Ephrem the Syrian, one of my favorite saints, 4th century Eastern Christian writer and doctor of the church, in his beautiful hymns on the Nativity, where he's. He's preaching on the feast of the Nativity, this is what he says. And I'll end with these words. The virgin this day brought forth Immanuel in Bethlehem to Eve our mother. A man Adam gave birth, who himself had no birth. How much more should Eve's daughter be believed to have borne a child without a man? The virgin earth she bore that Adam that was head over the earth. The virgin bore today the Adam that was head over over the heavens. This day is the firstborn feast, which, being born the first, overcomes all feasts. Christmas overcomes all feasts in the winter, which strips the fruit of the branches from off the Barren vine fruit sprang up for us in the cold that bears all the trees. A shoot was green for us of the house of Jesse. In December, when the seed is hidden in the earth, there sprouted forth from the womb, the womb of Mary, the ear of life, Ephraim, the Syrian hens on the Nativity. And think about it. Every year at Christmas, what happens in the winter solstice, right at that time of year when the night is longest, at Christmas time, the days turn, they begin to get longer, right? Because the light of the world, who enlightens the world, has come into the world not just to save sinners, not even just to be Emmanuel, God with us, but as Jesus says in the Book of Revelation, to make all things new in Christ. And so the virgin birth of Jesus isn't just a Christological mystery. It's an eschatological mystery that points us to our hope one day for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. So ponder that mystery. Ponder both those mysteries as you prepare this Advent season to celebrate the great feast of the Nativity of Jesus Christ, who became incarnate for us men and for our salvation, the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. God bless.