Episode 3319: St. Leo the Great’s Sermons on the Nativity – Part 1

December 6, 2025

St Andrews Novena
Hail and blessed be the hour and moment
in which the Son of God was born
of the most pure Virgin Mary,
at midnight, in Bethlehem, in piercing cold.
In that hour vouchsafe, I beseech Thee, O my God,
to hear my prayer and grant my desires,
through the merits of Our Savior Jesus Christ,
and of His Blessed Mother. Amen.
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Book Recommendation of the Day
St. Leo the Great: Sermons on the Nativity
Traditional, majestic, doctrinally precise perfect for Advent preaching.

St. Leo the Great’s Sermons on the Nativity – Part 1
“The Day of New Redemption”
A Traditional Catholic Exploration of the Incarnation
INTRODUCTION — THE FORGOTTEN WONDER OF CHRISTMAS
My friends, welcome to Episode 1 of our new series on St. Leo the Great’s Sermons on the Nativity some of the most theologically rich, pastorally profound, and spiritually transformative Christmas teachings in the history of the Catholic Church.
Today, we face a strange crisis:
Christmas has never been more celebrated, and yet never more misunderstood.
We have music, decorations, movies, lights, and nostalgic feelings…
but very little awareness of the earth-shattering mystery that took place in Bethlehem.
Christmas has become a cozy memory, instead of the invasion of God into fallen history.
It has become sentimental, instead of supernatural.
It has become commercial, instead of cosmic.
But 1,600 years ago, Pope St. Leo the Great — standing in the basilicas of ancient Rome — preached sermons that cut through all confusion with powerful clarity.
His words are so doctrinally perfect that the Church still includes them in the traditional Breviary.
He described Christmas as:
• “the day of new redemption,”
• “the fulfillment of ancient preparation,”
• and “the dawn of eternal joy.”
This episode begins our journey through these sermons — not as historians, but as Traditional Catholics hungry to rediscover what Christmas truly means.
Because if we do not recover the doctrine of the Incarnation,
we cannot rebuild the Faith,
we cannot restore the liturgy,
and we cannot renew the Church.
SEGMENT 1 — ST. LEO’S CENTRAL MESSAGE: TRUE GOD, TRUE MAN
Every sermon St. Leo ever preached on Christmas repeats the same thunderous truth:
Christ is one divine Person with two complete natures — fully God, fully man.
Not 50/50.
Not divine pretending to be human.
Not human with a spark of divinity.
No — the eternal Word truly became flesh.
St. Leo was not preaching in peaceful times. He confronted the great Christological heresies:
• Arianism, denying Christ’s full divinity
• Nestorianism, splitting Him into two persons
• Eutychianism, blending the natures into confusion
These heresies weren’t academic squabbles —
they threatened the very Gospel itself.
And so St. Leo preached with fire:
“He who is true God is also true man.
He who is eternal is born in time.
He who made all things is Himself made from the Virgin.”
Why does this matter?
Because your salvation depends on it.
If Christ is not fully man, He cannot represent us.
If Christ is not fully God, His sacrifice cannot save us.
St. Leo’s Nativity sermons are the pastoral explanation of his famous Tome to Flavian, the document that guided the Council of Chalcedon in defining the dogma of Christ we still profess today.
Today, we face a new wave of soft heresies:
• Jesus reduced to a moral teacher
• Jesus treated as a political figure
• Jesus presented as merely an example of love
• Jesus stripped of His Kingship, His miracle-working power, His authority
St. Leo’s voice cuts through all of it:
At Christmas, God becomes man so that man may be restored to God.
This is the heart of our Faith.
SEGMENT 2 — THE “MARVELOUS EXCHANGE”: WHY CHRIST WAS BORN
One of the most beautiful expressions in all of St. Leo’s preaching is the admirabile commercium —
the “marvelous exchange.”
This is the mystery of the Incarnation:
God takes what is ours, so we may receive what is His.
St. Leo describes it in poetic contrasts:
• The Creator enters His creation.
• The Invisible becomes visible.
• The Lord of glory becomes a servant.
• The Eternal Word becomes an infant who cannot yet speak.
This is not God changing His nature.
It is God uniting Himself to our nature.
St. Leo calls this the beginning of a divine transaction:
Christ takes our weakness and gives us His strength.
Christ takes our mortality and gives us His immortality.
Christ takes our poverty and gives us His riches.
This is why Christmas cannot be separated from Calvary.
Bethlehem is the shadow of Golgotha.
The manger is the first step toward the Cross.
The swaddling clothes foreshadow the burial shroud.
There are two pieces of wood in the life of Christ —
the cradle and the Cross —
and both are placed before us to remind us:
He was born to die,
so that we who die may live.
We lose sight of this today.
We hear of Christmas as though it were a sentimental story, a charming tradition — something safe, sweet, and tame.
But St. Leo tells us plainly:
The Incarnation is a rescue mission.
A redemption.
A divine intervention.
A cosmic battle against sin and death.
SEGMENT 3 — “CHRISTIAN, RECOGNIZE YOUR DIGNITY”
(Approx. 5 minutes)
If there is one line from St. Leo that has echoed through the centuries, it is this:
“Christian, recognize your dignity.”
This is not encouragement.
It is a warning.
It is a command.
St. Leo says:
Since the Son of God has taken human nature,
you can no longer live as though you belong to the world.
Because Christ has elevated your nature,
you must elevate your conduct.
Christmas should change your behavior.
St. Leo calls the faithful to:
• Turn away from former sins
• Reject impurity and worldliness
• Resist the flesh
• Guard their speech
• Protect their baptismal innocence
He writes:
“Do not return to the old slavery.
You have been bought at a price.”
This is a message for our times.
We live in an age when being “Catholic” is often reduced to a label —
a cultural identity, a set of vague values, a tradition inherited but not lived.
St. Leo’s voice pierces that fog:
If God has become man, then man must become holy.
If Christ has descended to us, we must ascend to Him.
There is no Christmas without conversion.
SEGMENT 4 — MARY, THE MOTHER OF GOD
(Approx. 4 minutes)
St. Leo’s sermons are profoundly Marian.
In every sermon he proclaims Mary as:
• Dei Genetrix — Mother of God
• ever-virgin
• the pure vessel through whom the Word took flesh
He teaches that Mary’s divine maternity is the guarantee of Christ’s true divinity.
He famously writes:
“He who is God in the form of God is the same who is man in the form of a servant, born of the Virgin.”
And he insists that her virginity — before, during, and after birth — is essential to understanding Christ’s identity.
St. Leo sees Mary not as an accessory to the Nativity, but as the predestined instrument through which God accomplishes His plan.
In an age when even some Catholics question or soften Marian doctrine,
St. Leo reminds us:
To understand Christ correctly, you must honor His Mother correctly.
SEGMENT 5 — HOPE AND UNIVERSAL JOY: SALVATION IS NOW OPEN TO ALL
St. Leo always concludes his Nativity homilies with explosive joy.
He announces:
“Let the just rejoice.
Let the sinner take courage.
Let the weak be strengthened.
Today the Savior is born.”
For St. Leo, Christmas is not exclusive.
It is not only for the holy.
It is not only for the devout.
It is for:
• sinners seeking mercy,
• the broken and weary,
• those in darkness,
• those who have lost hope.
But one group is excluded:
the one who refuses repentance.
Christmas is an open door —
but it must be walked through in humility.
St. Leo’s joy is not the thin happiness of modern Christmas sentimentality.
It is the unshakable joy of salvation.
Christ has come.
Grace has appeared.
Heaven has been opened.
The devil’s kingdom has been shaken.
And all humanity is invited to redemption.
CLOSING EXHORTATION
As we begin this series on St. Leo’s sermons, let his voice echo across sixteen centuries and into our wounded Church today.
Christmas is:
• not a story, but a victory
• not a symbol, but a divine invasion
• not simply a birth, but the beginning of the world’s redemption
In an age starving for clarity, doctrine, and spiritual courage, St. Leo shows us what true Catholic leadership looks like:
• Preach the truth boldly.
• Defend the Faith fiercely.
• Live your baptismal dignity without compromise.
• Recognize Christ as King — even in the humility of the manger.
This is the path of renewal.
This is the path of Tradition.
This is the path of salvation.
THE EPISTLE
Hebrews 13:7–17
“Remember your prelates who spoke the word of God to you.”
This Epistle is a luminous teaching on Catholic authority, obedience, and fidelity.
The author exhorts us:
“Remember your prelates… whose faith follow.”
The Church is hierarchical.
She is guided by shepherds—
bishops, priests, abbots—
and our salvation is mysteriously tied to their fidelity and ours.
Three Reflections on the Epistle
________________________________________
1. Imitate the faith of true Catholic shepherds.
The Epistle calls us to look at the saints, the Apostles, the Fathers—
those who lived, preached, and defended the apostolic faith without compromise.
In a time of confusion and doctrinal ambiguity, this directive is urgent:
Follow the shepherds who kept the Faith.
Not the ones who distort it.
This is the spirit of Tradition.
________________________________________
2. “Jesus Christ, yesterday, today, and forever, is the same.”
This single line destroys every modernist interpretation of doctrine.
Christ does not evolve.
Truth does not change.
Morality does not shift with the culture.
The deposit of faith is not clay to be reshaped—it is a rock to be defended.
The Epistle roots Advent in the unchanging nature of Jesus Christ.
________________________________________
3. “Obey your prelates and be subject to them.”
This obedience is not blind.
It is not servile.
It is rooted in fidelity to the faith the shepherds themselves must uphold.
We obey insofar as they remain guardians of the Tradition they received.
True obedience is ordered toward salvation—
not innovation, novelty, or error.
St. Nicholas himself modeled this perfectly:
obedient to the Church,
unyielding against heresy.
________________________________________
SEGMENT 2 — THE GOSPEL
Matthew 25:14–23 — The Parable of the Talents
“Well done, good and faithful servant.”
In today’s Gospel, Christ gives a parable that cuts to the heart of Advent.
A master entrusts talents—large sums of money—to his servants,
then leaves them for a time.
When he returns, he judges each according to his deeds.
This is a parable of:
• stewardship,
• accountability,
• judgment,
• and the expectation that every gift must return fruit.
Three Reflections on the Gospel
________________________________________
1. Everything we possess has been given by God.
Our time, abilities, resources, family, faith, opportunities, and even hardships—
all are talents entrusted to us.
Nothing in our life is accidental.
Everything is a divine assignment.
The question of Advent is not:
“What do I want to do?”
It is:
“What has God entrusted me to accomplish before Christ comes again?”
________________________________________
2. God expects a return—He demands fruit.
The servants who doubled their talents are praised.
The servant who buried his is condemned.
The lesson is unmistakable:
• A wasted vocation,
• a neglected prayer life,
• a dormant faith,
• an unused gift,
• or withheld charity—
all these will be judged.
Advent is the season to ask:
“What spiritual fruit am I offering to Christ? What have I done with the grace given to me?”
________________________________________
3. The judgment will be personal.
Christ says:
“Give an account of thy stewardship.”
Every soul will stand before God alone.
No excuses.
No comparisons.
No second chances.
Only two possible responses:
“Well done, good and faithful servant.”
—or—
“Thou wicked and slothful servant.”
Advent exists to push us toward the former
and deliver us from the latter.
________________________________________
SEGMENT 3 — FEAST OF ST. NICHOLAS
The Real St. Nicholas: Defender of the Faith and Father of the Poor
Now we turn to the feast of St. Nicholas, Bishop of Myra.
The world has reduced him to a sentimental figure,
but the Church remembers him differently:
• Champion of orthodoxy
• Defender of the Trinity
• Merciful father to the poor
• Model of episcopal courage
• Enemy of Arian heresy
• Miracle-worker
• Lover of justice and truth
Three Lessons from St. Nicholas
________________________________________
1. Holiness requires courage.
At the Council of Nicaea,
when Arius blasphemed Christ’s divinity,
Nicholas could not endure it.
He rose and struck Arius on the face.
This was not anger—
it was holy zeal,
born from love of Christ.
Today, when Christ’s divinity, doctrine, and Church are attacked,
traditional Catholics must imitate Nicholas:
loving, firm, courageous, uncompromising in defense of the truth.
________________________________________
2. Holiness requires charity.
The real Nicholas was known for his generosity,
especially done in secret.
He saved the poor, defended the innocent,
and cared for the weak.
His charity was not modern “activism.”
It was hidden, sacrificial, personal, Christ-centered.
This is Advent charity.
________________________________________
3. Holiness requires stewardship.
Nicholas used every gift God gave him:
• his position
• his influence
• his authority
• his learning
• his compassion
• his zeal
He multiplied every talent.
Thus he lived the Gospel.
St. Nicholas is a bridge between today’s Epistle and Gospel—
a bishop who guarded the faith
and a servant who gave God a great return.
________________________________________
SEGMENT 4 — LIVING THE MESSAGE TODAY
1. Honor and imitate holy shepherds.
Study the saints.
Learn from the Fathers.
Follow the examples of traditional bishops who kept the faith whole.
2. Steward the talents God has given you.
In your vocation.
In your family.
In your parish.
In your prayer life.
Let nothing be wasted.
3. Live Advent with holy zeal.
Purify your heart.
Deepen your prayer.
Seek silence.
Increase works of mercy.
Prepare your soul for judgment.
4. Defend the faith boldly.
Like St. Nicholas,
let your love for Christ move you to defend His truth
with courage and charity.
________________________________________
CONCLUSIONARY PRAYER
Let us pray.
O Lord Jesus Christ,
Who wilt come again in glory
to judge the living and the dead,
grant us grace in this holy season of Advent
to be faithful stewards of every gift Thou hast entrusted to us.
Through the intercession of St. Nicholas,
make us courageous in defending the faith,
generous in works of mercy,
and vigilant in preparing our souls
for Thy coming.
May we hear on that great day
the blessed words:
“Well done, good and faithful servant.”
Amen.
Come, Lord Jesus.