The Nativity, by Rogier van der Weyden, part of the Bladelin Altarpiece. / Public Domain.

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 24, 2021 / 17:00 pm (CNA).

While the saints offer unique insights into Christmas, they also touch on similar themes: hope, joy, and the unconditional love of God for each and every person. In celebration of Baby Jesus’ birth, here are 12 saints’ quotes on which to reflect:

1. St. Thérèse of Lisieux: “A God who became so small could only be mercy and love.” 

2. St. Paul VI: “We consider Christmas as the encounter, the great encounter, the historical encounter, the decisive encounter, between God and mankind. He who has faith knows this truly; let him rejoice.”

3. St. Alphonsus Liguori: “Arise, all ye nobles and peasants; Mary invites all, rich and poor, just and sinners, to enter the cave of Bethlehem, to adore and to kiss the feet of her new-born Son…Let us enter; let us not be afraid.” 

4. St. Augustine: “Awake, mankind! For your sake God has become man…I tell you again: for your sake, God became man.”

5. St. John Paul II: “If we celebrate with such solemnity the birth of Jesus, it is to bear witness that every human being [is] somebody unique and unrepeatable…somebody thought of and chosen from eternity, some[one] called and identified by his own name. It is as it was with the first man, Adam. It is as it was with the new Adam, born of the Virgin Mary in the cave at Bethlehem: ‘You shall call his name Jesus.’”

6. St. John Chrysostom: “This day He Who Is, is born; and He Who Is becomes what He was not.”

7. Venerable Fulton Sheen: “The world might have expected the Son of God to be born—if He was to be born at all—in an inn. A stable would be the last place in the world where one would have looked for Him. Divinity is always where one least expects to find it.”

8. St. Peter Chrysologus: “That the Creator is in his creature and God is in the flesh brings dignity to man without dishonour to him who made him. Why then, man, are you so worthless in your own eyes and yet so precious to God?”

9. St. Anthony of Padua: “O Father, in your Truth (that is to say, in your Son, humbled, needy and homeless) you have humbled me. He was humbled in the womb of the Virgin, needy in the manger of the sheep, and homeless on the wood of the Cross. Nothing so humbles the proud sinner as the humility of Jesus Christ’s humanity.”

10. St. Teresa of Calcutta: “My prayer for you is that when Christ comes to you in Christmas, He may find in you a warm home, warm love like that of a heartful of love, like that of a simple shepherd who was the first one chosen to see Christ.”

11. St. Leo the Great: “Sadness should have no place on the birthday of life. The fear of death has been swallowed up; life brings us joy with the promise of eternal happiness. No one is shut out from this joy; all share the same reason for rejoicing. Our Lord, victor over sin and death, finding no man free from sin, came to free us all.”

12. St. John the Apostle: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it…And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”