Friday before Christmas

The following hymn is taken from the poet Prudentius:


Come forth, sweet Babe! Child of chastity, Child of a Virgin Mother! Come, O thou, our Mediator, Man and God.

Though thou didst come, in time, from the mouth of the most high Father, and becamest incarnate at the angel's word; yet hadst thou, O eternal Wisdom, dwelt forever in the bosom of thy Father.

this eternal Wisdom manifested itself when it made heaven, light, and the other creatures; by the power of the Word were all these made, for the Word is God.

But having thus created the world, and fixed the laws of the universe, this Creator and Maker still left not His Father's bosom.

Until at length thousands of years rolled on, and then He deigned to visit the world grown old in sin.

For man, blinded with passion, paid adoration to empty vanities, and believed that brass, or stiff blocks of stone and wood, were God.

Abandoned to idolatry, they became the slaves of the treacherous enemy, and plunged their enslaved souls into the dark abyss.

But the Son of God compassionated this destruction of His fallen creatures; for it was the ruin of His Father's image.