“Our Saviour, dearly-beloved, was born today: let us be glad.”

Our Saviour, dearly-beloved, was born today: let us be glad.

Leo I · The Letters and Sermons · NPNF2 XII, Sermon XXI

Salvator noster, dilectissimi, hodie natus est: gaudeamus. The opening words of the first Nativity sermon and the sentence that opens Christmas in the Roman rite. He gives the reason immediately: there is no proper place for sadness when we keep the birthday of the Life which destroys the fear of mortality.

How this is known

These words were matched, word for word, against this project’s own copy of the volume cited.

Read in Feltoe, NPNF series 2 vol. 12 (1895) · Charles Lett Feltoe

Also by

Leo I every saying recorded of this person, and their page