When ages beyond number had run their course

Never mind Facebook, this is the ultimate in timelines. The Christmas Proclamation sets the birth of Christ into time. To chant it feels like a cascade, one marker to the next, until hanging on the reciting tone for more than seven times seven syllables we wait and wait until the Word bursts into time at "was born of the Virgin Mary.."

You can hear it chanted here. By the time you read this I will have stood at the ambo, taken a deep breath and proclaimed again "The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh."

Merry Christmas!

The Twenty-fifth Day of December

When ages beyond number had run their course from the creation of the world,

when God in the beginning created heaven and earth,

and formed man in his own likeness;

when century upon century had passed since the Almighty set his bow in the clouds after the Great Flood, as a sign of covenant and peace;

in the twenty-first century since Abraham, our father in faith, came out of the Ur of the Chaldees;

in the thirteenth century since the People of Israel were led by Moses in the Exodus from Egypt;

around the thousandth year since David was anointed King;

in the sixty-fifth week of the prophecy of Daniel;

in the one hundred and ninety-fourth Olympiad;

in the year seven hundred and fifty-two since the foundation of the City of Rome;

in the forty-second year of the reign of Caesar Octavian Augustus, the whole world being at peace,

Jesus Christ, eternal God and Son of the eternal Father,

desiring to consecrate the world by his most loving presence,

was conceived by the Holy Spirit,

and when nine months had passed since his conception....

was born of the Virgin Mary in Bethlehem of Judah, and was made man:

The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh.