The Solemnity of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ will be observed in a celebration of High Mass on Christmas Day, Monday, December 25 t 2:00 pm, at St. Stanislaus Church, State Street at Eld Street, New Haven. The Reverend Peter Lenox, Episcopal Vicar for Liturgy and Worship, Diocese of Bridgeport, will be the celebrant and homilist. The Schola Cantorum of the St. Gregory Society will sing the music for the service.

The Christmas liturgy gives far greater emphasis to the majesty of the Child Jesus than to the lowly sate of His birth.  As we contemplate the crib, it behooves us to acknowledge there the Word, the very Son of God, who, in the wake of all the prophets, came Himself to bring us tidings from the Father and who, having made “purgation of sins, sitteth on the right hand of the Majesty on High.”

These lofty considerations are admirably fitted to show the place of the mystery of Christmas in the scheme of salvation and help us to understand how far it affects us: “Grant, we beseech Thee, Almighty God, that as the Saviour of the world born on this day is the author of our divine generation, so He may Himself also be to us the giver of immortality,

Music for the liturgy will include the Missa de Angelis (Vatican edition VIII) chant ordinary, the Gregorian proper for Christmas Day: “Puer natus est nobis ,” motets by Orlando di Lasso (“Hodie apparuit in Israel”) and Cristóbal de Morales (“Puer natus”),  Latin  Christmas hymns, and organ music by Sir Charles H. H. Parry and Louis-Claude Daquin.