‘We make a holiday of Christmas only if we have the strength of mind to creep up the nursery stairs again, and pretend that we never came down them.’ Thus spoke Monsignor Ronald Knox on 25 December 1950 in a broadcast for the BBC.
That rich resonant Edwardian voice can still be heard on YouTube. His delivery and prose confirms what made him the greatest homilist of his time. As Paul Dean put it in a profile for New Criterion, “His homilies ….show the fruits of [his] upbringing, the ability to conduct a complex argument with grace, the carefully reined-in precision of phrasing that can rise, when required, to a moving ardour.” So the occasions when he brought these gifts to the Feast of Christmas are not just timely but worthy of note.
Read about Knox and his Christmas sermon in The Tablet (U.K.)
Knox is outstanding. But, the Church’s first Christmas homily is worth reading as well. The first Christmas sermon captured for the Church was preached in 386 by St. John Chrysostom, one of the Fathers of the Church. It was preached at Antioch in Asia Minor–during the first year of his public ministry. Later, he became the Archbishop/Patriarch of Constantinople and is a Doctor of the Church. It was his skillful preaching that earned him the nickname “Chrysostom,” which means “Golden-Mouthed.” His Christmas morning homily is linked below. And, remember it’s still the Christmas season! So, keep celebrating. Christ is born! Glorify Him!
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/billykangas/2009/12/st-john-chrysostom-homily-on-christmas-morning.html
Thanks for the link to the golden-mouthed one.
Googled Ronald Knox and BBC and listened to his short piece on his friend Chesterton.
Monsignor Ronald Knox was a fascinating English Catholic cleric in his era. He was born in 1888 and Ven. Fulton J. Sheen was born in 1895– and they met when young, while serving as professors on the faculty at St. Edmund’s College near Ware, England. Sheen wrote all about this in his autobiography, “Treasure in Clay.” Sheen and Knox had a wonderful friendship, and later, Sheen loved to promote Knox’s famous translation of the Holy Bible. Ven. Sheen knew many of the great men of his day. It is said that Msgr. Knox and G.K. Chesterton influenced each other’s decisions in converting to the Catholic Church.