The announcement of the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ is most appropriately chanted or recited during first Vespers on December 24. It can also be chanted or recited before the celebration of the Midnight Mass:
The twenty-fifth day of December,/ when ages beyond number had run their course/ from the creation of the world,/ when God in the beginning created heaven and earth,/ and formed man in His own likeness;/ when century upon century had passed/ since the Almighty set His bow in the clouds after the Great Flood,/ as a sign of covenant and peace;/ in the twenty-first century since Abraham, our father in faith,/ came out of Ur of the Chaldees;/ in the thirteenth century since the people of Israel were led by Moses/ in the Exodus from Egypt;/ around the thousandth year since David was anointed king;/ in the sixty-fifth week of the prophecy of Daniel;/ in the one hundred and ninety-fourth Olympiad;/ in the year seven hundred and fifty-two/ since the foundation of the city of Rome;/ in the forty-second year of the reign of Caesar Octavian Augustus,/ the whole word being at peace,/ JESUS CHRIST, eternal God and Son of the eternal Father, desiring to consecrate the world by His most loving Presence,/ was conceived by the Holy Ghost,/ and nine months having passed since his conception,/ (all genuflect) was born of the Virgin Mary in Bethlehem of Judah, and was made man.
(reverent pause)
(all rise) The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh.
We now wait in anticipation and joyful hope for the Midnight Mass, which will officially begin the celebration of the birth of Our Lord and Savior and mark the beginning of the Christmas season.
Lumen Fidei Ministries 