Nativity Quotes

“Christmas is built upon a beautiful and intentional paradox; that the birth of the homeless should be celebrated in every home.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Brave New Family: G.K. Chesterton on Men and Women, Children, Sex, Divorce, Marriage and the Family

“In my country childhood, we had many Christmas traditions: the fun and adventure of cutting down a tree from our ranch, hilarious Christmas programs at the church and school, and fun-filled caroling around our small town. Our family dominated this holiday’s focus.”
― Larada Horner-Miller, Hair on Fire: A Heartwarming & Humorous Christmas Memoir

“When I was four or five years old, my mom made me a beautiful white dress with red embroidery on the top for Christmas. I remember her laboring over it because sewing didn’t come naturally to her. I tried it on, and the gathered waistline with the fitted bodice just didn’t please her. It didn’t lie the way it should, so she ripped it out several times.”
― Larada Horner-Miller

“The nativity mystery “conceived from the Holy Spirit and born from the Virgin Mary”, means, that God became human, truly human out of his own grace. The miracle of the existence of Jesus , his “climbing down of God” is: Holy Spirit and Virgin Mary! Here is a human being, the Virgin Mary, and as he comes from God, Jesus comes also from this human being. Born of the Virgin Mary means a human origin for God. Jesus Christ is not only truly God, he is human like every one of us. He is human without limitation. He is not only similar to us, he is like us.”
― Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline: Essential Christian Theology from the Twentieth Century's Greatest Theologian

“The place that the shepherds found was not an academy or an abstract republic, it was not a place of myths allegorised or dissected or explained or explained away. It was a place of dreams come true.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man

“This Lord of natures today was transformed contrary to His nature;
it is not too difficult for us to also overthrow our evil will." Hymns of the Nativity, Hymn 1:97, pg. 74 in Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns (New York: Paulist Press, 1989).”
― St. Ephrem the Syrian

“And although it was in a hospital that she lay and I sat next to her—it is always that eternal poetry of Christmas night with the infant in the stable, as the old Dutch painters conceived it and MIllet and Breton—a light in the darkness, the brightness in the middle of a dark night. And so I hung a large etching after Rembrandt over it, the two women by the cradle, one of them reading from the Bible by candlelight, while the great shadows cast a deep chiaroscuro over the whole room.”
― Vincent van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

“Blessed be the Merciful One, who saw the weapon by Paradise, that closed the way to the Tree of Life; and came and took a Body which could suffer, that with the Door, that was in His side, He might open the way into Paradise.”
― Ephrem the Syrian, Hymns on the Nativity

“In one corner of the square is a manger scene with two live sheep, a bed of hay, a couple of cows. The baby Jesus is a brown-faced doll lying in his crib, but Mary and Joseph are real and dressed in period garb. Joseph hoists a staff, Mary sports her virginal blue robes. As I walked by the other day, Joseph balanced on the crib, light bulb in hand, reaching toward an electrical socket. Mary, I guess, was taking a break. She sat on the edge of the crib. Her blue robes were hiked high enough to reveal Doc Marten boots beneath. She sipped a can of Coke and smoked.”
― Laura Kelly, Dispatches from the Republic of Otherness

“[Mary] says her memories
Will help those of us
Newly come to our Lord’s mercy,
To live in His light.”
― Jessica Coupe, Daystar Rising: A Story of the First Christmas

“May every voice proclaim thy praise.
And every knee bow in thy presence
The tangible promise of our faith.
May thy Charity, like a mantle,
Lift us to God on high.”
― Jessica Coupe, Daystar Rising: A Story of the First Christmas

“He had a face like the north face of the Eiger by the time we’d got to the bit where the three wise men were reviled as capitalist pigs. He took Miss Elf into the showers and had a ‘Quiet Word’. We all heard every word he shouted. He said he wanted to see a traditional Nativity play, with a Tiny Tears doll playing Jesus and three wise men dressed in dressing gowns and tea towels. He threatened to cancel the play if Mary, alias Pandora, continued to go into simulated labour in the manger. This is typical of Scruton, he is nothing but a small-minded, provincial, sexually-inhibited fascist pig. How he rose to become a headmaster I do not know. He has been wearing the same hairy green suit for three years.”
― Sue Townsend, The secret diary of Adrian Mole aged 13¾

“And in blessing him
I was blessed,
And in comforting him
I was comforted…”
― Jessica Coupe, Daystar Rising: A Story of the First Christmas

“Wisdom of the Ages: "The Nativity" The Son of God was born in a manger-not surprising, have you seen the prices of hotel rooms in Bethlehem? Oy Vay! Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah Peace!”
― Matthew D. Heines, Deceptions of the Ages: "Mormons" Freemasons and Extraterrestrials

“In better times, we're celebrate Christmas Eve by attending the nativity play at the Catholic church down the road, watching Joseph and Mary and Baby Jesus try to escape from Herod's soldiers and their wooden swords and AK-47s (it wasn't the most accurate version, but it was funny.)”
― William Kamkwamba, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope

“Nationality is bigger than Nativity”
― P.S. Jagadeesh Kumar

“The splendors of creation and the agonies of redemption combine in this event, this center where God in Christ invades existence with redeeming life and decisively defeats evil.”
― Eugene Peterson

“You cannot take the child out of those arms or from that breast [of Mary]. It is the first altar purer than any altar ever to be in all time. And those arms own that child.”
― Abram J. Ryan, A Crown for Our Queen

“Moonless darkness stands between.
Past, the Past, no more be seen!
But the Bethlehem-star may lead me To the sight of Him Who freed me From the self that I have been.
Make me pure, Lord: Thou art holy;
Make me meek, Lord: Thou wert lowly;
Now beginning, and always:
Now begin, on Christmas day.”
― Gerard Manley Hopkins