Brethren, it belongs not to human sense to lay open the mystery of the virginal birth: what nature does not possess is of the Author, not of nature; it is the work of the Spirit on high, which the flesh cannot perceive; where there is no mark of humanity, there is the sign of deity, as the prophet says: The Lord God Himself will give you a sign. Behold, a virgin shall conceive in her womb (Isa. vii). Where there is nothing of earthly use, there all is of the heavenly order; what is not of the world cannot lie subject to a worldly understanding. A conception that preserves the virgin, a birth that leaves the virgin intact—divine is that which begets, not human; God passes where in no way is the footprint of human passage found; custom fails when miracles are wrought;
customs do not regard signs, singularity admits no precedent, as today's reading unfolds, which recounts the divine battles of little children. The cohort that rose up for its King longs wholly to die before Him rather than with Him: soldiers dedicated to Christ began to fight before to live, to do battle before to play, to shed blood before to long for the breasts of milk:
their burning souls did not endure the delays of the body, flying from the lap to the raging wedges of the enemy, they anticipate caresses with virtues, kisses with wounds, ointments with the sword, that they might be able to inhabit heaven before earth, to bear the rewards of the spirit before the flesh, to render triumphs to God before to endure the nourishments of men. Truly, truly, brethren, these are the martyrs of grace: they confess while silent, they fight while not knowing, they conquer unwitting, they die unaware, they take up palms though ignorant, they seize crowns unknowing. Therefore, just as virginity, knowing nothing of corruption, conferred honor upon the mother, so infancy, ignorant of passion, seized the palms and crowns of martyrdom. But what shall we say of this, that the King Himself, who ought to have stood His ground, fled alone, and fled at the Father's warning?
That flight is of an intimate love, not of a cowardly fear. If Christ had stood His ground, the synagogue would have had them as sons, and the Church would not have had these as martyrs.