I. Pagans thought out for themselves many things concerning the being of God, and then related their imagines as if they were facts. Such imaginings may be counted by hundreds. But since the world began, no man has ever imagined, in the remotest manner, that the charity of a God could go so far as to lead Him to appear amount men in the form of a man, and for their happiness and salvation to deliver Himself up to death. However, this marvel of divine love which it never entered into the heart of man co connive, and which is sufficient to astonish heaven and earth, found its accomplishment in the only true religion, which is the Christian. "God so loved the world, as to send His only begotten Son into the world." Such is the voice which for more than nineteen hundred years has echoed throughout the universe.
Jesus Christ is the name of the only begotten Son of God, who was sent into the world; He in every deed lived and labored in the world; This is an historical fact, no mere tradition, legend, myth, or fable. Listen to some proofs of this.
II. History teaches by means of the most reliable facts that from the beginning the greatest and most noble among mankind have readily accepted the Christian faith, the holy Gospel. Amongst these we find a proconsul of Paphos, a captain of the Roman cohorts, Deonysius, the Athenian sage, Flavius the consul, a cousin of Emperor Dointian; the most learned, moreover, amount the men who lived in those times; Justin, Athnagoras, Mintuius, and many others, men prominent among the scientists of the day, jurists, and government officials.
But it can not be supposed that all these men accepted the new doctrines, the new gospel, with careless indifference. On the contrary, they thoroughly examined in the first place the holy Gospel and the writings of the apostles, and more particularly they convinced themselves of the facts relating to the life of Jesus.
III. Furthermore, the disciples and apostles of Jesus bore witness to the truth of their convictions, to the facts of the life of Jesus Christ, by confessing these truths with their blood. When have there ever been impostors in the world, especially where religion was concerned, who have not striven either covertly or openly after notoriety, pleasure, dignities, and riches? Did the apostles, perchance, look for any of these things, or at least aim at attaining them? No, indeed! On the contrary, they knew perfectly well that they had nothing to expect but mockery, contradiction, shame, persecution and death.
With such a prospect as this could the apostles have lied and deceived, could they have invented the history of the life of Christ? No reasonable man could seriously assert such a thing. No; the apostles were themselves completely persuaded of the truth of everything which they preached to the world, and wrote down in the Sacred Scriptures concerning Jesus Christ. Nor did they hesitate for a moment to lay down their life as a testimony to the truth.
IV. Moreover, even Jewish and pagan historians bear explicit witness to the fact that Christ really lived. For example, a Jewish writer, Josephus Flavius, thus expresses himself in the first century: "At that time lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed he may be called a man. For he performed many wonderful works. . . . When Pilate, in consequence of an accusation brought against him by the most prominent men of our nation, condemned him to be crucified, his disciples still adhered to him. He rose again, and appeared to them alice on the third day, according to what the holly prophets had foretold of him in this, and a thousand other marvelous respects."
Similar is the testimony borne by heathen writers such as Tacitus, Suetonius, Pliny the younger, in regard to Christ. The first mentioned says that the founder of the Christian religion was condemned to death by Pilate, the Roman governor, during the reign of the emperor Tiberius. Heathen philosophers, such as Celsus and Porphyrius, who lived in the first and second centuries, did indeed write against Christ and His doctrines, but they never called in question the fact of His existence.
"Rejoice in the Lord," then, my youthful reader! Christ has in very deed lived on earth, and, as the Apostle says: "Christ is our peace." Christ alone can unite us to God, to the God who created the heavens and the earth, and in whom, to quote the words of the same apostle, "we live and move and are." And this Christ is now present in the Holy Eucharist, our Emmanuel, of whom the Angelic Doctor sing: Lauda Sion Salvatorem
Sion, lift thy voice and sing:
Praise thy Saviour and thy King,
Praise with hymns thy Shepherd true:
Strive thy best to praise Him well;
Yet doth He all praise excel;
None can ever reach His due.
Jesus! Shepherd of the sheep!
Thy true flock in safety keep.
Living Bread! Thy Life supply;
Strengthen us, or else we die;
Fill us with celestial grace
Thou, who feudist us below!
Source of all we have or know!
Grant that with Thy saints above,
Sitting at the feast of love,
We may see Thee face to face."
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